CIMB’s 3D Conquest nurtures young talent for digital age

KUCHING: CIMB Group’s (CIMB) inaugural 3D Conquest hackathon in Kuala Lumpur recently shortlisted 35 teams from an initial list of 715 teams, comprising 3,000 university students.

Running on three tracks – Data Science, FinTech and Coding – the 3D Conquest was organised to identify the region’s young digital talents as part of CIMB’s contribution towards Asean’s future development.

The Data Science track challenges students to build predictive models and segmentation frameworks that target revenue and profitability.

The dintech track requires students to reimagine banking solutions by developing innovative digital-related ideas that can improve the way we serve our customers and keep banking relevant, while the Coding track focuses on improving the mobile payments space with skills tested in coding, solutioning and development of prototypes for digital identity validation.

Datuk Hamidah Naziadin, group chief people officer of CIMB Group said CIMB’s youth development agenda across Asean is on empowering talents and developing leaders of tomorrow.

“With the Fourth Industrial Revolution already upon us, it has become more crucial than ever to develop digital leadership among our youths, which requires not only data-driven skills and an entrepreneurial mindset, but also mental agility, particularly in an operating landscape where disruption has become the norm,” he said in a statement.

“More than 50 per cent of Asean’s youth is under-30, and CIMB believes that by equipping them with the right digital competencies now, Asean could later tap into this deep digital talent pool to help realise the region’s true economic potential.”

Winners who have graduated will be offered employment with CIMB, while those waiting to complete their studies will be offered internships.

The 35 winning teams covering all three tracks were shortlisted from three in-country events in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Singapore, and hail from across Asean including Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

They will now advance to the grand finale in Kuala Lumpur, in January 2019, where participants for each track will vie for the championship prize and a study trip to Silicon Valley.

The seven Champion teams for this in-country round are The Datanian (Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation), NRGO (Institut Technologi Bandung) and Jet Et Al (Thammasat University, Mahidol University & Chulalongkorn University) for the Data Science track; JAKE (University of Reading Malaysia) and Wholistic (Universitas Kristen Petra) for the FinTech track; with mamadei (Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman) and GaryTambahSatu (Universitas Gadjah Mada) for the Coding track.

715 teams registered when CIMB 3D Conquest was launched in September 2018. 394 teams went to the next round after a series of assessments and presentations. After undergoing the second assessment, 213 teams qualified for the country-level in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.

The CIMB 3D Conquest is supported by Cloudera and Fusionex for the Data Science track, SAS and Amazon Web Services for FinTech and Oracle for Coding, with Malaysia Airlines as the Official Airline for the fourth consecutive year in supporting CIMB’s youth development initiatives. The CIMB 3D Conquest is also supported by the Ministry of Education Malaysia, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and Big Community.