You might remember MasterCard Canada’s N>XT Developer Competition from years past. We’ve proudly been judging this event for 2-years and declared it to be “an honest to goodness hackathon” where developers truly leave with value. Past winners, changeRoom and Tulip, have both found success well past its participation in N>XT.
This year, MasterCard is coming back to Canada but has slightly shifted its direction. The premise follows the previous structure, which is a weekend filled with coders battling it to possibly secure a spot and win $100,000 (USD). The event will be taking place in Montreal on September 26th and 27th and will now be known as the “MasterCard Masters of Code competition.” This name brings together MasterCard’s current hackathons that are happening in locations such as Sydney, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tel Aviv, and San Francisco.
MasterCard notes this year will focus on the “connected life” and will challenge Canadian developers to create an app that makes it easier for people to learn, travel, commute, shop or pay for everyday items. The event is open to Canadians and MasterCard says that each team “can have up to 5 humans are allowed. You can also add a cyborg, a Furby, a drone or a Sphero.”
During the pitch competition, each team will have present to a panel of judges for two minutes and followed by a 1-minute question and answer session. The winning team will be flown to Silicon Valley to complete in The Grand Finale Masters of Code hackathon on December 5th to 6th for a chance to win the 100k prize to fully develop their app idea.
In addition, the worldwide winning team will spend two weeks at the MasterCard Start Path acceleration in Dublin, Ireland (or in another program in remote areas), and also receive 6-months of mentoring from a member of the Open API MasterCard and Path Start program team.
“Canada is home to some of the best developers and tech enthusiasts in the world. At the Masters of Code hackathon, we’re asking teams to solve everyday pain points – from transit to travel to e-learning. This is a real opportunity for developers to turn the spark of an idea into a usable, market-ready app,” said Jason Davies, Head of Emerging Payments, MasterCard Canada. “I have no doubt that at the end of the Montreal event we’ll be sending a world-class Canadian team to San Francisco. I can’t wait to cheer our Canadian developers on.” The Masters of Code competition is sponsored and hosted by MasterCard and organized by AngelHack.