Cayan Kicks Off Payments Hackathon

One of the most enduring myths about Google is that its early employees were encouraged to spend a good chuck of time — legends say about 20 percent — devoting themselves to personal projects that could have wider real-world applications. Well, Cayan might not be Google, but that doesn’t mean the same embrace of unstructured play can’t work for them, too.

Cayan announced Monday (March 21) that it would be holding its third annual hackathon as a way to kickstart new ideas and reinvigorate its team of computer engineers. Cayan Senior Vice President of Engineering Dominic Lachowicz explained that his organization’s hackathons are much-needed breaks from the tedium of digital innovation, not to mention crucibles of more than a few advancements that are effecting real-world impacts.

“It’s not every day that you’re given the opportunity to think outside the box and take a deep dive into something that could end up being the next big thing for the industry,” Lachowicz said in a statement. “The hackathon is a great chance to push the envelope and introduce new ideas that we otherwise may not have been able to pursue.”

Cayan’s three-day event will begin Tuesday (March 22) and last until Thursday — plenty of time for its engineers to think up and design projects to rival last year’s crop. The fruits of the 2015 hackathon’s labors included machine-learning algorithms that could detect signature fraud, consolidated APIs for use by independent software vendors and a program to automatically release database fixes for more reliable security and performance.

“The hackathon is a great way to shine a light on Cayan’s culture of creativity, innovation and talent,” Henry Helgeson, CEO of Cayan, said in a statement. “In years past, the hackathon has led to important advances in our technology. Hackathons put the power back into the hands of our talented technology team.”