Mitrais is committed to providing our staff with as many opportunities as possible to improve their knowledge and skills. Even if they are working from client’s location, they are given the same chance to learn new knowledge and skills. The proof of the success of this strategy has been demonstrated by the achievements of two Mitrais’ staff members who are currently working on the project with BTPN last month. 11 August was an important day for Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional (BTPN) as it marked the anniversary of the launch of its digital banking product, Jenius. Mitrais, as a partner of BTPN, took part in the celebration by participating in the Jenius x IT Hackathon, which was held on 12-13 August 2017 at Menara BTPN, Jakarta. We are proud to announce that a team including two of our great staff won the third place in this competition.

I Putu Yoga Permana and Robertus Sonny Prakoso, formed a team with Luthfi Apriyanto, a BTPN staff member, to participate in the Hackathon. The competition is focused on innovation in digital banking, with each team given 24 hours to develop an idea and to work on the concept before the top 10 finalists were chosen to make their pitch to the judges.

Yoga, Sonny, and Luthfi, did exceptional work in developing their initial idea into an application using two relatively new technologies. For the frontend application they decided to use React Native, a universal framework which fits both Android and iPhone platforms. Meanwhile for the backend and API integration, they used GraphQL. According to Yoga, “Competing in this event is great for us, because it gives us the chance to learn and to work on React Native and GraphQL, which we had never used before.”

After completing 24 hours of coding as the first stage of competition, the team was chosen as one of 10 finalists to present their idea and demonstrate their application in front of the judges. In clearly explaining their idea and demonstrating what they have achieved within the last 24 hours, the team impressed the judges who gave them the third place in the contest based on the team’s innovative idea and its readiness to be applied in the industry.

“It’s a nice surprise for us. We never expected that we could win the third place against such strong competition. Other contestants’ ideas were great, and we although we were happy with our work, we didn’t have high expectations,” Yoga stated after the event. He continued, “It’s been a great experience for us, and we can’t wait to join in other similar events.”