The 2024 nCino Hackathon: Innovating with Efficiency and Collaboration
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A hackathon is a collaborative coding event where individuals or teams join forces to create innovative solutions and solve real-world problems facing bankers. Participants brainstorm and build prototypes of their solutions within a short amount of time, typically ranging from one day to one week. At the end of the event, teams present their projects to the wider company.
The annual nCino Hackathon unites employees for a week of collaborative problem-solving, where we tackle real customer challenges and enhance our own operational efficiency by developing innovative solutions. Either in teams or as individuals, employees have the opportunity to showcase their ability to invent and build platforms, tools, and products in a friendly competition that encourages teamwork and creative experimentation.
“It’s easy to be siloed and hyper-focused on the job we got hired to perform. The Hackathon provided a fantastic opportunity to step out of that mindset, work with other team members that we don’t always get the opportunity to work with and innovate without preconceptions or constraints. Can’t wait for next year!”
- Jay Leiner, Internal Efficiency Impact Winner
The 2024 nCino Hackathon
Presentations were delivered through a live Zoom stream to allow the active participation of competitors across all office locations, including remote employees. A panel of nCino leaders and executives carefully judged this year’s Hackathon presentations. Winners were awarded in each of the following categories:
Internal AI Impact: A project that optimizes nCino’s internal processes for profitable growth using large language models and generative Al.
Customer AI Impact: A project that revolutionizes our customer experience with the power of AI.
Guru Innovator: A cutting-edge product that pushes boundaries and brings visionary ideas to life.
Sparkle Innovator: A project with an extra touch of brilliance.
People's Champion: The best overall innovation, selected by vote from nCino employees.
“Working at a company that prioritizes innovation gives us the freedom to experiment with cutting-edge technologies like GenAI. It’s exciting to be in an environment where we can take bold ideas and turn them into working products, all while knowing the company values forward-thinking solutions to help our customers succeed while achieving the goal of reducing administrative overhead.”
- Eric Byun, Internal Efficiency Impact Award Winner
This year, over 50 teams and individuals joined the competition. All projects were judged based on various criteria including innovation, business potential, user experience, data-centricity, responsible use of AI, and the quality of the technical solution. After an intense competition, this year’s awards went to the following projects:
Eric Byun, Meghana Rozenfeld, William Fleming, Michael Humphrey, Jay Leiner, and Kate Bresnahan won the Internal Efficiency Impact Award for their product “Admin Advisor” which summarizes new release notes, provides actionable insights, and compares standard nCino Configurations for a feature to the Admin’s work in order to make proactive recommendations on how to better align to company standards.
The Customer Efficiency Impact Award went to “Project Highjump,” created by Don Permezel, Nick Monteleone, Nicholas Amor, Milton Chen, and Ehsan Hamzei, whose project predicts all fields in nCino to increase automation across the platform.
Ian Norris secured the Guru Innovator Award for the invention of the “Intelligence Playground,” which allows our customers to leverage our existing Data & AI infrastructure to receive immediate value.
Chris Fecteau, Tyler Kramlich, Benjamin Miller, and Juan Echeverry claimed the Sparkle Innovator Award for their product “Chomp,” a voice-enabled online banking product that streamlines risk-awareness and application submission for FIs and their customers.
nCino employees honored Kate Barber, Shannon Gentry, Matt Thies, and Derrin Pierret with the People’s Choice Award for their solution “GatorGuide,” the AI-powered browser extension that acts as one resource for company facts, product information, writing assistance, company style standards, and general nCino cultural knowledge.
“Each of us worked together already, but we deepened our working relationship even further during Hackathon, which has only benefitted our larger team! We learned how easily we can work together and bring an idea all the way through to a demo-able product.”
- Benjamin Miller, Sparkle Innovator Award Winner
All winners were awarded trophies, cash prizes, and bragging rights! We’re proud of all our innovators for their hard work and creativity, a true embodiment of our nCino culture. We can’t wait to see how next year’s Hackathon drives innovation even further!
To learn more about nCino’s award-winning company culture, visit our Careers page.