IOI Properties is offering RM35,000 cash prize at its first hackathon

Do you have an original idea for an app that will disrupt the way online property searches are conducted? If the answer is yes, IOI Properties wants to hear your idea in its first IOI Hackathon. Assemble your crew to form a team of three (with at least 1 coder) and submit your entry by 17 July to stand a chance to win part of a total prize pool of RM35,000 in cash.

The inaugural hackathon is an initiative by IOI Properties under its digital transformation push to identify cutting edge ideas and projects that provide applicable solutions to the real estate industry. Teams may choose from any of the following three challenges:

Challenge 1: 

Find a way to aggregate all searches for houses by time, budget and location of the property searched. 

Challenge 2:

Find a solution to identify the type of houses people are searching for online in terms of size, number of rooms, budget, location, price and current trends.

Challenge 3:

Develop a way to help landlords manage their properties while facilitating communication between them and their tenants. In addition, the solution has to help manage contracts.

IOI Properties is aggressively seeking original ideas and solutions that can improve the lifestyle of its residents, communities and business partners. Its chief sales and marketing officer Jason Tie said, “We are committed to supporting our young talents in the pursuit of their ideas through funding, business advice and adoption of their solutions in our business.” 

He added that the property developing is looking forward to checking out the cutting edge ideas and solutions from participants that it can further and develop for immediate implementation. “In addition, we are committed to supporting our young talents to pursue their ideas through funding, business advice, providing a testbed and adoption of their solutions in our business.”

IOI Hackathon participants will have mentors assigned to help them along the way. The lead mentors are Edward Chin (Founder, Actualize Hub) and Stanley Seow (an Internet of Things and hackathon specialist). The hackathon adviser is JomHack Malaysia, who will also be supervising the participants.

The two-week competition will see teams of three members battling it out to develop an original app that would disrupt how people choose, buy and manage properties. After submitting their entries, they will be required to attend a virtual briefing on 18 July and select a challenge that they wish to tackle.

According to the hackathon rules, participants are not allowed to pre-code anything or work on existing projects. They are allowed to work with open source resources that are publicly available and can develop their solution using any programming language.

All completed projects will then have to be submitted to the organisers for the screening round on or before 25 July. Online submissions will need to include the app, prototype, demo or mock-up that was developed, introduction video of the team and screen capture video explaining how it works.

The judges will then shortlist and announce the qualifying teams on 27 July.  During the finals on 1 August, teams will need to present and demonstrate their app to a panel of judges at the event in.

The cash prize pool of RM35,000 will be split across three winners as follows:

Grand prize winner – RM15,000

1st runner-up – RM10,000

2nd runner-up – RM5,000

Registration is open until 11.59 pm on 17 July. Further information is available on IOI Properties’ website.