Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund and Capital One Announce Winners of Multi-city Hackathon to Support Financial Empowerment

NEW YORK, Sept. 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund (CFE Fund) and Capital One today announced the winner of the Multi-city Financial Empowerment Hackathon, a national effort to create software applications (apps) focused on financial inclusion.  Representing San Francisco, MEDAPulse, in partnership with the Mission Economic Development Agency, won the national competition with a tool that helps financial counselors better engage with clients by using technology to remind them of the goals that clients committed to achieving between sessions.

Through a grant from Capital One, the CFE Fund provided funding and technical assistance to Chicago, New York City and San Francisco to host regional hackathons. Combined, hackathons in these cities had over 110 participants who worked in teams to create numerous apps, including budget trackers, goal-setting applications, financial achievement badges and financial action plans.

"We believe an effective approach to helping low-income people stabilize their personal finances will involve technology to meet people where they are, as well as local governments to incorporate such services within municipal infrastructure," said Jonathan Mintz, President and CEO, CFE Fund. "We are excited by MEDAPulse's use of technology to facilitate client follow up on goals they've set with financial advisors."

"Investing in innovation and technology can help communities address some of their most important social and economic issues," said Daniel Delehanty, senior director of Community Development Banking, Capital One Bank.  "The Multi-city Financial Empowerment Hackathon is a creative way to bring together the most innovative thinkers in technology design, government and business to focus on the issue of financial empowerment by developing tools that will help lower-income individuals achieve their financial goals. We know that when our community members learn how to make, spend and save money responsibly, larger communities and economies benefit."    

The winners from each city presented their ideas virtually to a panel of judges on September 6, including:

• Daniel Delehanty, Senior Director, Capital One Community Development Banking
• Jonathan Mintz, President and CEO, CFE Fund
• Zach Haehn, R&D Chief, Bloomberg LLP
• Eric Jaffe, Contributing Writer, CityLab
• Eleanor Wieschaus, Software Developer and Project Manager, Bloomberg LLP
• Anthony Schrauth, Chief Product Officer, Betterment

The winning app helps non-profit financial counselors guide and connect with clients beyond the paper based action plan that are relied upon today. Coaches and clients build an action plans together on MEDAPulse and clients receive customized text messages from their coach based on their personalized plan. Clients are able to respond to their coaches by text to complete steps or reach out for additional help. The app was built in partnership with the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA), a nonprofit dedicated to financial empowerment and economic justice.

"The San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment and our partner nonprofit agencies were impressed by the quality of the projects developed for the San Francisco hackathon," said Leigh Phillips, Director of the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment at the City and County of San Francisco. "The hackathon developed actionable, tech-based solutions that will help our nonprofits and clients, and also provided a valuable opportunity for the tech and nonprofit sectors to work together. We are proud that San Francisco won the national hackathon and look forward to continuing our work to find innovative solutions to issues faced by nonprofits and their clients every day."

"The SF Smart Money Hackathon, made possible by the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund and Capital One, was the best hackathon I have ever attended." said Brittany Martin, a Rails Support Engineer at Ninefold. "Lightning struck twice. I found an amazing team of Rails developers and MEDA was the perfect partner to work with on a real solution for client engagement." 

Last year's hackathon winner created an app called RemindMe, which was funded for eventual development. The program automatically calls Financial Empowerment Center clients to remind them of their upcoming financial counseling appointment, allows them to easily confirm or reschedule, and gives them helpful information including appointment directions and what to bring.

This year's winner, MEDAPulse, will attend the next meeting of the CFE Coalition, a group of 14 city governments, which together are leading a national movement to integrate financial empowerment services into municipal social services. The team behind MEDAPulse will pitch their idea to city leaders to join together and fund development of the application. The winning team members include Melanie Gin, Brittany Martin, Jamie McKenzie and Chris Yancey.

About the Cities for Financial Empowerment (CFE) Fund
The CFE Fund supports municipal efforts to improve the financial stability of households by leveraging opportunities unique to local government. By translating cutting edge experience with large scale programs, research, and policy in cities of all sizes, the CFE Fund assists mayors and other local leaders to identify, develop, fund, implement, and research pilots and programs that help families build assets and make the most of their financial resources. For more information, please visit www.cfefund.org or email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter @CFEfund or like us on Facebook.

About Capital One

Capital One Financial Corporation (www.capitalone.com) is a financial holding company whose subsidiaries, which include Capital One, N.A., and Capital One Bank (USA), N. A., had $205.9 billion in deposits and $298.3 billion in total assets as of June 30, 2014. Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, Capital One offers a broad spectrum of financial products and services to consumers, small businesses and commercial clients through a variety of channels. Capital One, N.A. has approximately 900 branch locations primarily in New York, New Jersey, Texas, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. A Fortune 500 company, Capital One trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "COF" and is included in the S&P 100 index.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

CFE Fund
Farah Kurji
[email protected]
(212) 885-0461

Capital One
Shelley Solheim
[email protected]
(917) 589-6203

SOURCE Cities for Financial Empowerment (CFE) Fund