The $100,000 grand prize was awarded to the team from Moscow who created an app called Donate Now. Second place went to team Tel Aviv (Dañny Leshém, Yaniv Ben Zaken, Maya Marom and Yoav Amit) for RunPal, an app that connects users with other runners around the world to encourage them to get running. And, third place went to team Miami (Alexander Sjögren, Jose Pimienta and Osniel Gonzalez) for LoanPal, a peer-to-peer lending service.
Donate Now uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology and PayPal to allow anyone to instantly donate to a cause in the moment without filling in lengthy forms right from their mobile devices, whenever and wherever they see an opportunity for giving in their daily lives. The team consisted of four members: Sergey Pronin, Alexander Balabna, Bayram Annakov, and Oksana Tretiakova.
“We’re thrilled to share that the awesome team from Moscow has won $100,000 for its innovative Donate Now app,” said John Lunn, Global Director of PayPal’s Developer Network. “We truly believe that developers can help change the world. The goal of our Battle Hack program is to find the best and brightest developers across the globe that could do just that. The response from our inaugural Battle Hack competition has been overwhelming, with several cities selling out and bringing talented hackers.”
The PayPal Battle Hack Series launched in May 2013 and hosted regional hackathons in 10 cities worldwide. Prior to the finale event in San Jose, California, PayPal hosted regional competitions in Berlin, New York City, Tel Aviv, Seattle, Miami, Moscow, Austin, London, Washington, D.C., and Barcelona. PayPal awarded first place to one team in each regional Battle Hack city. Each winning team then traveled (all flight and hotel expenses paid) to San Jose to compete in PayPal’s Battle Hack World Finals. Throughout the Battle Hack Series each team was judged based the quality of the idea, execution and innovation, and the overall user experience of the app.
“People love helping others in need, but there are so many obstacles that can make it hard to donate,” said the winners of both Battle Hack Moscow and the World Finals. “The commitment to great developer tools and the attention we received from PayPal’s evangelists and mentors throughout the competition gave us a unique opportunity to showcase what we do every day—build terrific applications to solve pressing problems.”
The 24-hour competition created 10 new apps, ranging from a seasonal payroll system and real-time peer loans for the under-banked, to ways for food trucks to quickly expand service locations with pledges from customers. The PayPal Battle Hack World Finals judges included: John Lunn; David Marcus, President of PayPal; Isaac Saldana, President of SendGrid; Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio; Aunkur Arya, Braintree General Manager of Mobile; and Sarah Austin, Stremor Chief Product Officer.
With more than 137 million active users in 193 markets and 26 currencies, PayPal continues to be the only digital payments company that can scale as a developer’s business grows. PayPal was the first payments company to open up its APIs for developers in 2009. Since then, hundreds of thousands of developers have used its APIs and developer tools. PayPal released new REST APIs, mobile SDKs and a developer website earlier this year to make it even easier and faster for developers to take payments.
About PayPal
PayPal is the faster, safer way to pay and get paid online. The service allows people to send payments without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts (where available), credit and debit cards in various markets. PayPal is an eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) company and enables global e-commerce with over 132 million active accounts in 193 markets and 25 currencies around the world. PayPal is headquartered in San Jose, California and its international headquarters is located in Singapore. More information about the company can be found at https://www.paypal.com.