Bank to the Future Design Sprint

In the spring semester of 2020 BME and MNB jointly organized the Bank to the Future digital application design competition. We also joined the project providing our expertise in event organization, developing and online advertising to ensure the smooth delivery of the competition.

The organizers were expecting mobile application ideas to support increasing young people’s financial awareness that are linked to the soon-to-open Money Museum.

In the first round of the competition participants had to solve various tasks in an online escape room. Only the teams who successfully escaped could upload their application ideas. The 12 teams that submitted the best ideas progressed to the final round, where they had to showcase their mobile app ideas. The finalists attended an intensive, one-day training focusing on digital product development, design and marketing prior to the final.

The best idea was worth a 2 million HUF prize, while a special prize of 1 million HUF and 4 thematic prizes of 500 000 HUF where awarded by the professional juries to the teams presenting the most unique and innovative ideas.

Qualification - Online Escapes Room

In the qualification round participants had to escape from the secret software lab of a fictive company operating in the field of financial IT taking on the role of team members tasked to equip the MNB Money Museum with financial artifacts from the past.

By answering various financial and IT questions, they were given the code which opened the next room. In one room, 3 tasks had to be solved correctly in order for the door to open. They had to complete a total of 5 rooms to escape.

The first two rooms were available to everyone as part of our Warm up game during the registration period.

Intensive training for the finalists

To support the preparation of the finalists, the organizers held intensive training. During the training, participants could to listen to lectures on gamification, storytelling and personalities, video pitching, UX / UI design, which provided a great starting point or additional ideas to improve their application idea.

Final

The COVID-19 pandemic also affected the delivery of the competition, so the final, which was originally planned to be held live, was moved to an online space. The finalists submitted their presentations in an unusual way in the form of videos, which were judged by a professional jury in the final. The results of the competition can be found on the website.

Feedback from the participants

Participants expressed their opinion regarding the competition through a feedback questionnaire after the final. Overall, the contestants were satisfied with the theme and delivery of the competition. The organizers managed to adapt to the extraordinary circumstances by conducting the final of the competition online, and 89% of the participants would apply to the competition again.