Alibaba Cloud and NAB host hackathon to find new ways to help Australian businesses leverage Asia opportunity

Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, and National Australia Bank (NAB) have come together to host a hackathon to explore new ways to help Australian small businesses leverage opportunities to do business with Asia.

The three-day event starting this Friday evening will see more than 80 people across 15 teams look at how data intelligence could help develop new solutions to enable Australian businesses selling to China and how they can improve services for Chinese visitors coming to Australia.

The event, the first major activity held at fintech hub Stone & Chalk’s new residence at the Goods Shed in Melbourne, will see contestants tackle the challenge of integrating NAB data and Alibaba Cloud API to develop new initiatives to help Australian small businesses, as well as visitors coming to Australia.

NAB EGM Digital and Innovation Jonathan Davey said: “We’re excited to be working with Alibaba Cloud and Stone & Chalk to engage our thriving start-up ecosystem to see what new ideas we can come up with, using the data we have, to deliver better experiences for Australian small businesses.”

“As Australia’s largest business bank, we are always looking at ways we can support Australian businesses and we are looking forward to seeing what new experiences the teams come up.” He added.

Raymond Ma, General Manager of ANZ & ASEAN, Alibaba Cloud said: “This is a great initiative for entrepreneurs, developers and designers to create something of real value to businesses and visitors to Australia. We’re really excited to see what the teams can deliver over the hackathon. As Alibaba Cloud expands its footprint and services across the region, we will continue our global mission to make it easy to do business anywhere. “

Alan Tsen, General Manager of Stone & Chalk Melbourne said: “We’re excited to be hosting this event, with NAB and Alibaba Cloud, at our new Melbourne home, the Goods Shed North. Events like this hackathon are a great way to highlight the latent opportunities that exist for companies to tap into the Asian market. With 95 entrants, there are sure to be some amazing product ideas that come out of the weekend and we're excited to be bringing corporate and startup innovation together.”

The winning team will walk away with a prize that includes:

• US$10,000 Alibaba Cloud credits +

• Return airfares for four people to Singapore or China

• 3-night accommodations for four people in Singapore or China

• Four tickets to the Alibaba Cloud Computing Conference in Singapore or China.

MEDIA NOTES

Information about the APIs available to competing teams can be found here. All data is provided is ‘stub data’ and not in a ‘live environment’.

Follow the conversation on Twitter during the event via the hashtag: #CrossBorderHackathon

ENDS