MasterCard to Hold Masters of Code Global Hackathon Competition in New York City

MasterCard today announced that the MasterCard Masters of Code™ hackathon is coming to New York City on Saturday, November 7th through Sunday, November 8th at Impact Hub New York. The New York City winner will have the chance to compete against master coders from the other regional events for the $100,000 USD Grand Prize at the Grand Finale in Silicon Valley.

Sponsored and hosted by MasterCard, the Masters of Code competition is a series of weekend-long hackathons that bring together the world’s top developers, designers and entrepreneurs to take on the MasterCard APIs. Using these APIs, developers have access to unsurpassed assets, data and products from MasterCard focused on powering commerce on a global scale. The participating teams compete to create innovative prototypes that demonstrate artful coding and design skills while also articulating clear business use cases – all focused on driving the next generation of commerce applications.

For the Big Apple event, the challenge for participants will be to develop the best consumer experience using a combination of software and hardware and any MasterCard APIs – with added bonus points earned by integrating the featured API, Simplify Commerce, or the “secret” API announced at the time of the event.

The event features an esteemed panel of judges who will decide the winning team based on their innovation’s impact, design, creativity, simplicity and usage of MasterCard’s APIs. The judging panel will include:

• Max Chion, Group Executive, Emerging Payments Products, MasterCard
• Karen Pascoe, Group Head, User Experience Implementation, MasterCard
• Nick Chirls, Founder & Partner, Notation Capital
• Anthony Ha, Media and Advertising Writer, TechCrunch
• Karen Webster, Editor, PYMNTS.com and CEO, Market Platform Dynamics

Martina Hund-Mejean, Chief Financial Officer at MasterCard, will deliver the opening keynote address.

“We’re excited to take our global hackathon series to the city that does more thinking than sleeping. Tapping into the minds of NYC’s most innovative thinkers is an opportunity for MasterCard to foster innovation in ways we never could have imagined,” said Max Chion, Group Executive, Emerging Payment Products, MasterCard. “As one of the most thriving tech communities in the world, New York is an ideal city to engage many of the world’s top coders. As the second to last stop in the series, we expect the competition to be intense and the ideation to be limitless.”

The 2015 Masters of Code series kicked off with its first event in Sydney, followed by events in Hong Kong, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Tel Aviv, Mexico City, San Francisco, Montreal, Istanbul and St. Louis. London will be the last stop for the series before the Grand Finale in Silicon Valley.

For more information about the MasterCard Masters of Code competition including rules, judging criteria, prizes, etc., visit www.MastersofCode.com.

About MasterCard

MasterCard, www.mastercard.com, is a technology company in the global payments industry. We operate the world’s fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. MasterCard’s products and solutions make everyday commerce activities – such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances – easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MasterCardNews, join the discussion on the Beyond the Transaction Blog and subscribe for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau.

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