LUMA Hackathon (July 3rd - 10th)

The Problem

The financial world is gatekept by complex jargon and confusing systems. While digital banking is everywhere, real financial literacy remains a privilege. Millions of people, including young adults, gig workers, and underserved communities, struggle to navigate basic money concepts, which often leads to systemic disadvantage and costly mistakes.

The Challenge

Create a product, platform, or tool that breaks down the barriers to financial literacy. Your solution should make money management, investing, or economic concepts intuitive, engaging, and genuinely accessible to people from any background.

Focus Areas

Jargon Translators: Tools that parse complex financial documents like lease agreements, loan terms, or privacy policies and explain them in plain language.

Gamified Education: Applications that teach budgeting, credit health, or taxes through interactive simulations or habit-building mechanics.

Inclusive Tech: Products designed with accessibility at the forefront, catering to neurodivergent users, non-native speakers, or those with visual or auditory impairments.

Early Intervention: Platforms tailored for teenagers and young adults to build healthy financial habits before they face major financial decisions.

 

What is a Hackathon? A hackathon is a technical sprint. You will execute a functional project like an app, website, or software tool that solves a real world problem through code.

Round 1: Project Submission Submit a 5 minute video demonstration covering:

The Problem: What specific technical or social challenge are you tackling?

The Build: A walkthrough of your codebase, architecture, and the stack used.

The Demo: A screen share recording of the project functioning in real time.

Scalability: How is this project suited to handle more data or more users?

Round 2: Live Finals The top technical projects will advance to a Live Demonstration and Q&A. Finalists will run their code live for a panel of judges and defend their technical logic and architecture in a real time discussion.

All Participants: Subscription prize

Who Can Participate? Any high school or middle schooler student. Teams of 1 to 5.