D&B (NYSE: DNB), the world’s leading source of commercial information
and insight on businesses, today announced the winners of its Inaugural
DC Techathon held recently at Microsoft’s Chevy Chase Campus in
Washington, DC. More than 100 developers in twenty-two teams competed
over two days for a total of $30,000 in cash and prizes. Teams were
tasked with building solutions to combat malfeasance in the public
sector, including business identity fraud, cyber security, money
laundering, and global trade/border protection.
The winning team, comprised of developer and designer Murali Bala and
Zech Kottilil, topped the field, walking away with the $15,000
first-place award. They created a sleek interface that combined multiple
data sources in one easy-to-navigate platform, with potential to impact
both the public and private sector. The $7,500 second place team
impressed the judges with their easy-to-use interface to help identify
potentially fraudulent businesses based on an array of data elements
including the physical address’ street view and a company’s D&B fraud
score. An application enabling comparative research on the quality of
medical and assisted care facilities netted the third-place award of
$2,500. Five teams received honorable mentions and took home $1,000 for
their efforts.
“We were very pleased with the overwhelming turnout of talented
developers, building on the growing community of technology experts who
recognize the value of working with D&B,” said Josh Peirez, President,
Global Marketing, Product and Innovation at D&B. “Techathons are in line
with the visionary innovation created in D&B’s iLab development group
every day – and we are planning additional developer events in other
technology hubs next year.”
D&B assembled an impressive selection of judges for the event from a
range of markets, including government, technology, venture capital, and
D&B data experts. The developers leveraged D&B’s global business
information database, the D-U-N-S® Number and D&B’s web services API,
D&B Direct 2.0. Participants also used data sets, APIs and visualization
tools from partner data providers.
The judging panel evaluated applications based on five criteria:
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Potential to impact target audience
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Quality and accuracy of solution
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Creativity and originality
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Potential for further development and use
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Potential to engage and motivate target audience
An overview of the event and the winning solutions can be found here.
For more information on how D&B currently helps the Government solve
problems, visit www.dnb.com/government.
About Dun & Bradstreet® (D&B)
Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB) is the world's leading source of commercial
information and insight on businesses, enabling companies to Decide with
Confidence® for 172 years. D&B's global commercial database contains
more than 230 million business records. The database is enhanced by
D&B's proprietary DUNSRight® Quality Process, which provides our
customers with quality business information. This quality information is
the foundation of our global solutions that customers rely on to make
critical business decisions.
D&B provides two solution sets that meet a diverse set of customer needs
globally. Customers use D&B Risk Management Solutions™ to mitigate
credit and supplier risk, increase cash flow and drive increased
profitability; and D&B Sales & Marketing Solutions™ to provide data
management capabilities that provide effective and cost efficient
marketing solutions and to convert prospects into clients by enabling
business professionals to research companies, executives and industries.
For more information, please visit www.dnb.com.
Copyright Business Wire 2013