We Had a Successful Hackathon Focused on AI, Machine Learning and Digital Analytics.

Prague, 13 November 2024 - Last Wednesday, 43 participants gathered in the extraordinary premises of Komerční banka on Wenceslas Square in Prague. They were divided into 9 teams and spent the next 48 hours solving the challenges in three areas.

They had 7 mentors, such as Jan Navrátil from Deloitte, data analysts and data scientists Vítek Paník and Petr Ptáčník from Komerční banka, Jakub Bareš from Zlin.ai, Vojta Kůrka from Meir or Jiří Pětvaldský from Cruxo - they were there to lend a hand whenever unexpected pitfalls arose. 

The individual teams spent most of their time in the Conference Centre and focused on making functional prototypes, which, after hard work, and even a sleepless night, were handed in by 2 pm on Friday.

The hackathon programme also included an unconventional tour of the bank vault or the original, historical premises of the KB branch. There was also a panel discussion about the real-world implementation of AI in the corporate world or the benefits and threats of AI today and in the future. Experts Sara Polak from Mobilis Institure, Michal Ciffra from Depo Ventures, Lukáš Benzl from the AI Association, Jiří Kacerovský from KB, Jakub Hytka from Trask and Jan Hejtmánek from Deloitte accepted the invitation and shared their views.

The hackathon culminated with the Friday evaluation and awarding of the winning teams. After the tough decision-making and the final selection of the winners, Margus Simson, CDO of Komerční banka, took the floor on behalf of the entire jury and announced the final ranking of the teams. The evaluation included, for example, the functionality but also the financial impact of the proposed solution or the degree of innovation. The overall winners were the VML team, whose solution "Actionable behavioral patterns" scored exactly 1 point more than the second-place team from Etnetera. The complex solution for identifying visitor-customers on the KB website practically divided the judges into two camps. Third place and the recognition of all those present went to the Czech IT Academy high-school team from the Secondary School of Industry Smíchov. It was an unexpected surprise of the hackathon, as it managed to compete with seasoned corporate teams and proposed improvements in the area of targeted marketing communication and customer segmentation... The KB Kobliha team and their Chain of Events PTB Model also jumped onto the imaginary winners’ podium.

“Participating in the hackathon was a great opportunity for a teambuilding. Most of us are working on different global projects, so there are not many opportunities like this where we can work together on one assignment. As a team, it allowed us to transfer knowledge better and share different hacks. In terms of the process itself, we spent a significant amount of time thinking about how best to help the bank’s clients and make them feel more natural and comfortable in KB’s digital environment. Once we were clear on a specific goal, we focused on implementing it through machine learning models and the rest is history. We are proud that our joint efforts have resulted in a quality outcome that clearly demonstrates what AI can bring to KB customers. Thank you for the excellent organisation and inspiring atmosphere that allowed us to move our ideas into a specific form in such a short time.” Adam Varga, the VML team representative. 

“On behalf of Etnetera, we are very happy to have been able to participate in the KB Hackathon. We are excited about the topic of digital channel data and AI, so we quickly found an interesting use case and eventually built a solution that was appreciated by the jury. However, most of all we enjoyed two great days in a nice environment with great people. We appreciate that KB provided anonymised but fundamentally real data. This allowed us to focus on the real business need, and the resulting solution has the potential to work even on raw data,” adds Jiří Štěpán from the Etnetera team.

 „The Komerční banka Hackathon was a great experience and a huge inspiration for our team. We signed up because we wanted to push our skills, connect with experts and bring innovative solutions to the table. The organisation was excellent, from the initial contact to the support during the event itself. We are very happy with the result - third place in such a strong competition is a great achievement for us. Our aim is to develop the project further and look for ways to realise its potential in practice. We thank the organisers for this great opportunity,“ says David Ždimera.

The event exceeded internal expectations, as the judges commented “The Hackathon fulfilled our expectations to the last detail. We appreciate the huge commitment and great performance of each team, which brought a lot of interesting ideas, suggestions and prototypes of possible solutions. It was a great experience full of inspiration for everyone, and that's actually the most important thing for me”, says Martin Gerneš - Tribe Lead - Data Platforms Tribe. Michal Vytiska – Strategic Business Development Manager thinks: “Excellent practical prototypes and the best hackathon atmosphere I've experienced". Seeing 16-year-old hackers in action was one of the best moments of recent times for me”. “I enjoyed the hackathon for its atmosphere and energy. I'm so glad that the outcomes provided new innovative impulses that we will use to develop predictive models and prepare more effective personalised offers for our clients in the digital environment”, says Gabriela Pithartová – Product Owner – Retail Segment Tribe. Margus Simson – Chief Digital Office KB then concludes “It was a great event, there were many excellent ideas and potential implementations. The teams were able to show in a very simple way what AI can do for our customers and our bank. Thank you”.

The individual winners were awarded both financial and material prizes from the Partners of the event, who deserve a big thank you for rewarding them for a job well done.

This hackathon was part of Komerční banka's broader efforts to promote innovation in finance and technology. The bank is currently going through a major digital transformation phase and has been investing in modern solutions for a long time, including the November theme, artificial intelligence.