Expert Judges from Google, Facebook, Harvard, and More to
Award Cash Prizes Totaling $25,000 to Top Five Finalists at September 28 Event
WASHINGTON
– The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury), the D2D Fund
(D2D), and the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) today announced
the eight finalists for the App Design portion of the MyMoneyAppUp Challenge, a contest
offering cash prizes and recognition for the best mobile
app ideas and designs to help Americans make smart financial choices, access
high quality financial products and services, and ultimately control and shape
their financial futures.
The eight finalists, who will present their App Designs to a panel of expert
judges at the MyMoneyAppUp Challenge Award Ceremony on September 28 at
the Treasury Department in Washington, DC, include:
·
Bank Up: Patrick Peterson
and Ryan Heger, Washington, DC
·
Buying Happiness:
Collin
O’Rourke, Waukegan, Illinois
·
Centz: Nicole Kendrot,
Hoboken, New Jersey
·
Crazy Money: Nancy Anderson,
Clinton, Mississippi
·
Know It All: Robert Scott,
Parrish, Florida
·
MOOLAH: Pamela Chan and
Eric Tyler, Washington, DC
·
My Next Car: Richard Trask,
Landenberg, Pennsylvania and Jason Mastriani, Newark, Delaware
·
PayU: Marianne Switaj,
Middletown, Pennsylvania
To view the App Design finalists’ submissions,
visit http://1.usa.gov/U4Vy1B.
From these eight finalists, the panel of expert judges will select a Grand
Prize Winner, to be awarded $10,000. Additionally,
two Runners-Up will win $5,000 each and two Honorable Mentions will win $2,500
each.
The panel of expert judges includes:
- Chris Bishko—Bishko leads Omidyar Network’s investments in U.S.
technology-enabled financial services companies.
- Jean Chatzky—Chatzky is an award-winning personal finance
journalist, best-selling author, and television personality who
specializes in making money make sense.
- Sendhil Mullainathan—Mullainathan is a Professor of Economics at Harvard
University and founder of ideas42, a non-profit behavioral economics ideas
lab devoted to turning insights about people from behavioral economics
into policies, interventions, and products that solve some of the world
toughest problems.
- Carol Realini—Realini is a globally-recognized banking innovator and
mobile payment pioneer as well as a successful serial entrepreneur,
author, and board member. She is
passionate about the potential of mobile to enable financial services that
empower people’s life and work.
- Jennifer
Taylor—Taylor
leads the product marketing platform team for Facebook. Before Facebook, Taylor was Senior
Director of Product Management for Rich Media Solutions at Adobe.
- Jonathan Weiner—Weiner is a recognized leader and proven entrepreneur
with a consistent track record of creating and managing successful
business ventures. He is currently
working on business development and payments at Google.
Support for prizes and the administration of the Challenge by D2D
and CFSI comes from the Ford Foundation, Omidyar Network, and the Citi
Foundation. No government funds were used as part of the MyMoneyAppUp
Challenge.
At the conclusion of the MyMoneyAppUp Challenge, competitors who want to take
their winning ideas to the next step and develop fully functional apps may
enter the Financial Capability Development (FinCapDev)
Competition, a separate, complementary competition sponsored exclusively by
D2D and CFSI.
About the MyMoneyAppUp Challenge
The MyMoneyAppUp Challenge, launched by Treasury in partnership with D2D and CFSI,
is a contest offering cash prizes for the best mobile app ideas and designs to
help Americans make smart financial choices, access high quality financial
products and services, and control and shape their financial futures.
The Challenge is part of Treasury's efforts to promote Smart Disclosure, a new
initiative by the Obama Administration to expand access to data that can fuel
the creation of new products and services to benefit financial consumers.
Contestants were encouraged to create ideas and designs for apps that
incorporate data to promote financial capability and access.
To learn more about the Challenge, visit http://mymoneyappup.challenge.gov.
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