They had 7 mentors at their disposal, such as Jan Navrátil from Deloitte, data analysts and data scientists Vítek Páník and Petr Ptáčník from Komerční Banka, Jakub Bareš from Zlin.ai, Vojta Kůrka from Meira, or Jiří Pětvaldský from Cruxo – all ready to lend a hand whenever unexpected obstacles arose.
Teams spent most of their time in the Conference Center, focusing on creating functional prototypes that were submitted by 2 PM on Friday after hard work, including some sleepless nights. The hackathon also featured a unique tour of the bank’s vault or the original historic premises of the KB branch for some entertainment. A panel discussion covered real-world AI implementation in corporate environments, as well as the benefits and threats of AI today and in the future. Experts like Sara Polak from Mobilis Institute, Michal Ciffra from Depo Ventures, Lukáš Benzl from the AI Association, Jiří Kacerovský from KB, Jakub Hytka from Trask, and Jan Hejtmánek from Deloitte shared their perspectives.
The hackathon culminated on Friday with the evaluation and awarding of the winning teams. After difficult deliberations and a final decision, Margus Simson, CDO of Komerční Banka, announced the final team rankings on behalf of the entire jury. Criteria included functionality, the financial impact of the proposed solution, and the level of innovation. The overall winners were Team VML. Their solution, “Actionable Behavioral Patterns,” narrowly edged out the second-place Team Etnetera by just one point. Their comprehensive solution for identifying non-client visitors on KB’s website divided the jury into two camps. Third place and recognition from all present went to the high school team Czech IT Academy from the Smíchov Secondary Technical School. This team was the unexpected surprise of the hackathon, managing to compete with experienced corporate teams by proposing improvements in targeted marketing communication and customer segmentation. Team KB Kobliha and their “Chain of Events PTB Model” also made it to the virtual podium.
“Participating in the hackathon was a great opportunity for us to engage in team building. Most of us work on various global projects, so opportunities like this, where we can work together on a single task, are rare. As a team, we could better share knowledge and insights. Regarding the event itself, we spent considerable time thinking about how to best help the bank’s clients and ensure they feel more natural and comfortable in the digital KB environment. Once we clarified our specific goal, we focused on its realization through machine learning models, and the rest is history. We are proud that our collective effort resulted in a quality outcome that clearly shows what AI can bring to KB’s customers. We thank everyone for the excellent organization and inspiring atmosphere that allowed us to turn our ideas into a tangible solution in such a short time,” says Adam Varga, a representative from Team VML.
“From Etnetera, we are very happy to have participated in the KB Hackathon. We enjoy the topic of data from digital channels and AI, so we quickly found an interesting use case and eventually built a solution that the jury appreciated. But we enjoyed the two great days in a pleasant environment with amazing people the most. We appreciate that KB provided anonymized but real data in principle. Thanks to that, we could focus on an actual business need, and the resulting solution has the potential to work on real data,” adds Jiří Štěpán from Team Etnetera.
“The Komerční Banka hackathon was a great experience and a huge inspiration for our team. We signed up because we wanted to push our skills, connect with experts, and bring innovative solutions to the table. The organization was excellent, from the initial contact to support during the event itself. We are very satisfied with the result – third place in such strong competition is a huge success for us. Our goal is to further develop the project and find ways to realize its potential in practice. We thank the organizers for this wonderful opportunity,” says David Ždimera.
The event exceeded internal expectations, as commented by the judges: “The hackathon met our expectations down to the last detail. I appreciate the tremendous effort and great performance of every team, which brought many interesting ideas, suggestions, and prototype solutions. It was a fantastic experience full of inspiration for everyone, and that is, to me, the most important thing,” says Martin Gerneš, Tribe Lead – Data Platforms Tribe. Michal Vytiska, Strategic Business Development Manager, says: “Great practical prototypes and the best atmosphere I’ve experienced at a hackathon. Seeing 16-year-old hackers in action was one of the highlights of recent times.” “I enjoyed the hackathon for its atmosphere and energy. I’m very pleased that the outputs brought new innovative impulses that we will use to develop predictive models and prepare more efficient personalized offers for our clients in the digital environment,” says Gabriela Pithartová, Product Owner – Retail Segment Tribe. Finally, Margus Simson, Chief Digital Officer of KB, summarizes: “It was a great event with many very good ideas and potential implementations. The teams were easily able to show what AI can do for our customers and for our bank. Thank you.”
The winners received both financial and non-financial prizes from the event’s partners, who deserve big thanks for rewarding their excellent work.
This hackathon was part of Komerční Banka’s broader effort to support innovation in finance and technology. The bank is currently undergoing a significant phase of digital transformation and is investing long-term in modern solutions – including AI, the topic of November.
