Innova Challenge MX challenges your skills with Big Data

Big Data is currently one of the trends that offers greater possibilities in processing information. Every day we are witnessing how this set of processes, technologies and business models are finding new and revolutionary ways to capture the value found within the data.

Here at BBVA we are working closely with Big Data technology in order to achieve the many benefits that this innovative trend offers in improving ongoing business or in creating new products, while always intending to have as positive an impact as possible on the lives of citizens and decision making in companies.

Our first experience of open innovation in Big Data, Innova Challenge, proved to be a success. The more than 140 projects (from 19 countries) included authentic works of art that are growing and evolving to this day.

As a result of this great experience, here at BBVA we have decided to launch the second edition of our Big Data challenge: Innova Challenge MX.

If you didn't take part before, or haven't heard of this technological challenge, you're probably wondering what it is. Innova Challenge is a pioneering initiative from BBVA based on Big Data in which developers worldwide are challenged to create applications based on processing bulk data. It is aimed at promoting an open culture of continuous exchange between BBVA and developer communities throughout the world. Through Innova Challenge MX we are looking to convert large amounts of information into something more accessible and easy to understand by anyone and thus give the data an intelligence that allows companies and state institutions to make better decisions (which, ultimately, impacts on the quality of life of citizens).

What is the difference between Innova Challenge MX and other competitions or hackathones? It's very simple; the challenge proposed by BBVA gives you the unique opportunity to work with data on business transactions that is dissociated, irreversible and has the sufficient level of aggregation so individual people or businesses cannot be distinguished. In this case, BBVA Bancomer makes this valuable information available to you via a dataset that is included within an API designed especially for the competition. There are only two conditions: first, you must show your talent and find the most creative way to process this data. The second, you must use your ingenuity and combine the dataset with other external sources of information.

While the data related to the cities of Madrid and Barcelona in the first edition of the competition, in Innova Challenge MX we are raising the stake and making (differentiated and aggregated) commercial data from three cities: Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara available to you for a grand total of 6 months (from November 1, 2013 to April 30, 2014), which are all available to you when you simply enter the competition.

And if all this were not enough, Innova Challenge MX is offering €60,000 in prizes for the best projects, which will be split into two categories with a first prize of €15,000, a second of €10,000 and a third of €5,000 each. The categories are:

Consumer apps, which are aimed at improving the daily lives of citizens through relevant services and/or information, such as tools for recommending restaurants.

Apps for the corporate sector, which are those used by private or public companies and promote decision making and the development of procedures, processes, products and services. The tools for analyzing the impact of marketing campaigns, for example, would be included in this group.

By now I'm sure you are keen to take part in Innova Challenge MX and you're wondering when you can start. The application period begins on October 6, at which point you can use the opportunity to take a look at all the information, rules for participation, API technical documentation and resources that Innova Challenge MX provides you with for you to be able to start planning your project. From October 20 the good part begins, because from that time you can start using the API data that BBVA makes available to you. From this day you have until 12:00 p.m. (GMT+1) on December 1 to develop, submit your project and opt for the competition's attractive prizes. Our jury will carefully evaluate each project and on January 15 you will be able to find out who the winners are.

Throughout the competition, we will give you all the help and advice possible. Innova Challenge MX will therefore have a full agenda of activities through online and face-to-face events. In addition, BBVAOpen4U will offer a wide variety of support publications and articles on Big Data. Here you will find interviews with winners from previous editions, webinars on data visualization, geospatial SQL, interesting libraries, applications, repositories and much more. Moreover, we are providing you with an email address (bbvaopen4u@bbva.com) through which we will answer all your questions.

Join Innova Challenge MX, test your Big Data skills and show your talent to the world.

A great visualization of CartoDB on InnovaChallenge MX!