Iran’s first banking solution provider Tosan held the first fintech hackathon on payment solutions and banking called TosanBoom Innovation Challenge. Over 170 teams applied for the 3 day hackathon, where 24 teams were selected to join the battle. The selected teams got access to 20 API’s from Tosan to be used in their product.
Tosan started operating in the year 1997. Its main goal form start was to produce banking and payment softwares to cover the need of the Iranian banking system. Around 10 banks and more than 6 large sized credit institutes are using Tosan’s products currently. Tosan’s products extend from Iran’s biggest online payment portal Shaparak, to Tehranis famous all in one purpose NFC transportation cards used for the metro and buses, and providing software and hardware services for ATM & VTM machines. This well known company has always been known for being the mecca of talented tech dev force, that have revolutionized Iran’s core banking system.
With the purpose of giving back to the community of entrepreneurs, software developers and financiers, and to further help Iranian talents, a hackathon has been held on November 4th, 2015.
In This 3 day hackathon, with the help of 15 professional mentors, the startup worked on their startup to finalize their produce and getting it ready to showcase in front of the judges. The jury committee consisted of experienced entrepreneurs, university profs and senior level managers from different companies and banks.
Held in Amirkabir university of Technology, 24 teams pitched their product in front of the judges and the crowd. Tosanboom prizes consisted of 20 million Tomans for the first team, 10 Million Tomans for the second, 5 million for the 2 teams which tied for third place, and also an additional 5 million Tomans for the team with the best idea as the last prize of this hackathon.
A brief look on TosanBooms winners
1st place: ChoobKhat
First place went to Choob Khat, A billing mechanism which a third person would pay the targets bill. This comes in use in cases where a certain department of your company, let’s say the accounting department, is paying for the bills, or on a different scale, the father of a family is in charge of paying the bills that comes for every other member of the family. ChoobKhat distinguishes the person who orders and the person who pays.
2nd place: Hampeyman
A crowdfunding platform focusing on mostly charity causes. Users can also create groups with their friends to raise money within the group. A charity, that is verified by Hampeyman, is provided with a panel to start its campaign. If the amount of money that was intended to be raised has not met its goal, all the money donated by the user will be transferred back to the user’s bank account.
3rd place: Nivo & Moj (2 teams tied in 3rd place)
Nivo: Nivo creates a platform where all the inhabitants of an apartment can pay the apartment’s monthly charges, get in contact with the building manager, get updates on the building conditions and announcements and it also provides the building manager a dashboard to track and manage each of the building resident’s payments.
Moj: This startup created an app, where users would have single log-in access to all the their bank accounts in one place. With a UI and UX superiority comparing to the apps the banks provide, Moj wants to bring a great customer experience to the users, and a dashboard to track transactions from every bank you have an account in.
The Best Idea Prize
Drupz: A monthly automatic piggy bank saving. With its smart algorithm, Drupz knows how much of your bank balance it has to move to your saving account. The goal is to create a smart piggy bank for users to save money from their remaining monthly incomes.
Raesi, the CEO of Tosan Negin was on stage talking about the silicon valley culture and how Iran can rise up and have a vibrant ecosystem.
When talked with Raesi “Tosan is committed to be more engaged in Iran’s startup community”. Tosan can have a massive impact in Iran’s startup ecosystem. By holding such events and educating and creating opportunity for young entrepreneurs and dev talents, we are sure to see many positive impact on the Iranian startup scene by Tosan in the near future.
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