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Accenture and Aalto University will organise their fifth Digitalism Challenge hackathon course in late autumn. More than 100 students will participate in the course to solve public sector challenges. The participants are mainly master's level students of business, but students from Aalto University schools of technology and the School of Arts, Design and Architecture also take part in the course.

The themes of the challenges to be solved this autumn include facilitating business activities and new services that can be built by making use of real-time structured financial data. The course excellently meets the objectives of the Finnish Government to make Finland a pioneer in real-time economy.

In practice, this means that information on business transactions can be transferred in a standard, structured format and in real time from one company to another and from companies to the authorities. In order for the information exchange to work automatically, receipts and invoices need to be in standard, electronic format. Students will have access to simulated electronic company data produced in the Nordic Smart Government (NSG) project, i.e. purchase and sales invoices, receipts and bank statements.

Focus on the food chain

The challenges of the hackathon course are based on the objectives of the Nordic Smart Government project. The focus is on the challenges of SMEs operating in the food chain, such as the digital implementation of self-monitoring to meet food safety requirements.

In Finland, the NSG project is led by the Finnish Patent and Registration Office in collaboration with the State Treasury and the Tax Administration. The State Treasury has been developing e-invoicing and electronic receipts, and now the work continues at a Nordic level through the NSG project. The Finnish Tax Administration is actively involved in the development work, as the automation of financial administration would also simplify corporate taxation.

‘Students can once again benefit society by making good use of their creativity and skills. They will also receive feedback from the coaches of the participating organisations and gain excellent opportunities for networking,’ says Senior University Lecturer Johanna Bragge from the School of Business Department of Information and Service Management. She is responsible for the course at Aalto University. Johanna Bragge, Professor of Practice Esko Penttinen and Researcher Juha Eskelinen from the Department of Information and Service Management, and University Lecturer Tapani Kykkänen from the Department of Accounting will facilitate the course workshops.

Two-day hackathon and final presentations in November

The School of Business has been developing the Hackathon course concept with experts from Accenture and its service design unit Fjord since 2015. Students will get to continue the successful collaboration at the kick-off event of the course in the last week of October. The two-day hackathon will take place on 11–12 November and the finals on 25 November in Dipoli, Otaniemi Campus.

It remains to be seen what kind of solutions the students will develop by making use of new service innovations. The aim is to improve the competitiveness and efficiency of SMEs and to reduce the administrative burden through automation and use of data. The organisers also hope that the solutions will help companies grow and differentiate from competitors through the use of technology.

Aalto University:

Johanna Bragge
Senior University Lecturer
School of Business
Department of Information and Service Management
+358 40 530 1032
johanna.bragge@aalto.fi

Accenture:

Markus Mäkinen
Project Manager
+358 40 576 9957
markus.makinen@accenture.com

Nordic Smart Government project:

Project Managers:
Terhi Maijala
Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH)
+358 29 509 5300
terhi.maijala@prh.fi

Sanna Esterinen
Finnish Tax Administration
+358 29 512 4409
sanna.esterinen@vero.fi

Twitter: #PSChallenge19

The Twitter hashtag PS stands for Public Sector, because Digitalism Challenge focuses on solving the challenges of the public sector, thus facilitating everyday life for small businesses and consumers.