Boubyan Bank to Run A First-of-Its-Type Hackathon for Its Staff to Foster Creativity and Innovation

Boubyan Bank will be running the first-of-its-type hackathon for its staff to foster innovation and creativity in cooperation with Plug and Play, the international corporate innovation platform, as a part of the management’s keenness on uplifting the skills of all the bank’s staff, while looking forward to the positive impact this will have on the level of the bank’s products, services and customer service.

Adel Al-Hammad, General Manager – the Human Resources Group at Boubyan Bank stated: “We are very keen on adopting the latest internationally recognized development plans to invest in improving our talents emanating from the bank management’s belief that our talents are the foundation for any development or growth.”

“Over the recent years, the bank has been ahead of the curve in both the banking industry and the private sector in terms of implementing significant initiatives to develop its staff and drive them towards growth. This instilled more loyalty into the staff for the organization they work for.”, he added.

Creativity and Innovation

Speaking of the Hackathon, A-Hammad elaborated: “It is an event where participants join forces to bring up a solution to a specific problem or to invent a new or special one within a specific timeframe. The hackathon gives the opportunity to people with different skills and from different fields to join forces to develop solutions within a short timeframe. Then, a panel evaluates the outcome of their cooperation.”

Al-Hammad dwelt on the value of the prizes allocated for this important event which is considered the first of its kind in Kuwait. He stated that apart from the cash prizes, the bank’s staff would be allowed as well to visit San Francisco, the United States of America, as winners will have the chance to tour major internet and social media giants such as Google, Snap Chat, and many others to get to know the way of work and management at such international companies.

“The goals of the hackathon are to upskill staff within real time innovation skills that go from ideation to solution creation, to harness creative potential of staff to work on real life pain points within the organization, and to utilize the Hackathon concept to identify, verify and develop talents.”, he added.

More Hackathons in the Future

“This year will witness more initiatives for staff self-development, and to develop their creative potentials in an attempt from the management to discover more talents and to help them with their career progress at the bank in line with their ambitions.”, Al-Hammad concluded.

Plug and Play Tech Center is a network startup accelerator and corporate innovation platform headquartered in Sunnyvale, California in the Silicon Valley.

It is considered the largest Innovation accelerator in the world. It has over 220 corporate partners and 200 venture capitalists. Silicon Valley Business Journal recently named it the ‘Most active Silicon Valley venture capital firm’. Plug and Play were early investors in Google, PayPal, Dropbox, etc.