Formerly known as Lifestyle Insurance, Datify took home top honours at the Manulife Smart tech Challenge in Kitchener this past weekend. Manulife had challenged post-secondary students across Ontario to find a way to improve financial services through tech. Narrowed down from 40 applicants, Datify was able to beat out four other finalists on Saturday with its solution to use health trackers in speeding up insurance applications.
Speaking to BetaKit after the event, Velocity director Mike Kirkup, who was a judge at the Smart Tech Challenge, indicated that Datify’s solution was a well-suited answer to Manulife’s challenge. “Datify is a very good fit for Manulife’s focus areas, expertise and knowledge,” he said. “The team showed that they could take the latest technology (fitness tracking solutions like Fitbit) and use the data from that tech to ensure that customers were not overpaying for premiums.”
For its efforts, Datify received a $12,000 cash prize, Macbook laptops, and a four-month work term in the Manulife RED Lab at the Communitech Hub. Kirkup said that the ability to continue its work inside the RED Lab was a “huge opportunity” for Datify.
“The benefits of Manulife being in the Hub go both ways,” Kirkup continued. “Startups get to pitch and engage Manulife in ways that would traditionally be hard and increase their chances to land Manulife as a customer. On the other hand, Manulife gets exposure to companies and technologies that are changing the world, and that will push them to keep innovating, too.”