Singapore's DBS Bank is building hackathons into its talent development programme by pairing inhouse employees with startups from across the region to jointly tackle business and societal challenges.
At the DBS 'MegaHackathon' last week, the bank embedded 150 DBS employees with local startups to work on a range of mobile banking prototypes.
Dave Gledhill, head of group technology & operations at DBS says the initiative is driven by a desire to create a more "digital mindset" among the bank's employees.
The hackathon serves as a sandbox for employees to experiment like a startup, utilising lean startup methodology and human-centred design to identify and act on opportunities quickly, he says. It also provides startups with the opportunity to interact with like-minded peers, understand business realities and showcase their capabilities.
“Our industry is seeing an unprecedented pace of change and if we wish to remain relevant to our customers, our employees must embrace a culture of innovation and be intrapreneurs," says Gledhill. "At events such as the DBS MegaHackathon, our employees and startups can benefit from each other’s knowledge and expertise, as well as have a cultural exchange. This fresh approach to hackathons has generated a number of viable working prototypes for the bank. We believe it will also help shape the startup ecosystem in Singapore by creating business opportunities for them.”
The five-day DBS MegaHackathon kicked off with a two-day workshop to help DBS employees embrace the startup culture, followed by a three-day hackathon where bank staff and startups teamed up to create 19 prototype mobile apps.
The three winning startups walked away with prizes of S$8000, S$6000 and S$4000 respectively, while the rest were awarded S$2000 each.