Sella Data Challenge: the fintech VidyaSoft wins the contest dedicated to the data world
Sella Data Challenge, the competition aimed at startups and fintech scaleups launched by Banca Sella as part of its open innovation strategy and organized in partnership with the Fintech District, aimed at involving fintech companies in the development of new solutions and customization of the offer of products and services to customers, starting from data analysis.
Following a process started in February involving the nominations and the first selections, the 8 finalists worked on their project for two and a half months aiming at the final victory, which granted the winner a prize of 15 thousand euros and the possibility to develop and test with Banca Sella the solution identified.
The fintech company Vidyasoft wan the challenge with its project involving an AI algorithm to streamline the user experience when making an electronic payment of online purchases.
But how did the Sella Data Challenge take place? Let's retrace all the steps.
The competition
Launched by Banca Sella in partnership with the Fintech company Startup, the Sella Data Challenge provided that the selected participants could work on customer data, made anonymously available through the Fabrick "data sandbox": an open banking platform on which the bank has published its APIs. Participants could, therefore, rely on a genuine testing and development environment consistent with Privacy regulations to perform the desired data assessments and create customizations on services and products.
The optimization of the lifetime value assessment process, a key indicator in the analysis of customer purchase behaviour, or the adoption of new pre-scoring models, i.e. prior evaluation of funding requests, are just some examples of processes that can be improved by a better use of data and on which participants in the challenge have worked.
The participant fintech companies
8 startups and scale-up fintech companies competed in the final of the Sella Data Challenge: Virtual B, Premoneo, Bid Company, Cardo AI, Galileo XA, Utego, VidyaSoft and Altilia. Finalists stood out among 54 candidates, including foreign participants, that first enrolled in the competition, following a first selection that restricted the number to 16. The remaining 8 companies had two and a half months to implement and present their idea through a working prototype, a demo, an application or simply a "proof of concept". During the challenge, they were supported weekly by a team of professionals from Banca Sella, Fintech District and Fabrick, who helped them to develop their project.
The final challenge
In the final event of the Sella Data Challenge, the 8 finalists were able to present their solution to a jury composed of experts from the Sella group and three professionals in the industry: the journalist of the Sole 24 Ore Pierangelo Soldavini, United Ventures investment manager Giulia Giovannini and Aidexa's Chief Data Officer Walter Rizzi. All the members of the jury were able to individually evaluate the projects according to predefined parameters: the originality of the proposal, the development potential on the market up to the quality of the presentation. After a final collective discussion, the jury awarded the prize to the "Hands-Free SCA" project by Vidyasoft, which then won the 15 thousand euros up for grabs to develop and test the solution identified with Banca Sella.
The winning project
The "Hands-Free SCA" solution that Vidyasoft developed during the competition after succeeding in the first selections and being selected among the 8 startups and scale-ups for the final phase of the Sella Data Challenge was, therefore, the winner.
The project involves using an AI algorithm that understands whether a certain purchase is "typical" or not, thus simplifying the user experience when making electronic payments in online purchases.