By John San Filippo
Put 54 programmers, developers, designers and miscellaneous credit union technologists in a hotel ballroom for 36 hours straight and what do you get? In the case of CU Build 2024, the hackathon for credit unions running Jack Henry’s Symitar core processing platform, you get some remarkable solutions created by some very passionate and competitive individuals. Finopotamus was onsite for the entire event.
The format for the fourth annual event, held July 26-28 in Salt Lake City, was simple. Participants were assigned to one of nine teams a month ahead of time, the primary determining factor being that two people from the same organization were not allowed on the same team. Teams were allowed to plan prior to the event, but were not allowed to start coding until noon on Friday, July 26. All projects had to be turned in by midnight Saturday. Then on Sunday morning, each team presented a Shark Tank-like pitch to a panel of three judges, who deliberated for more than an hour before declaring a winner.
In addition to the Symitar environment provided by Jack Henry, the teams had the option to employ other technology tools provided by various vendors. To participate, vendors had to be members of Jack Henry’s Vendor Integration Program (VIP). The vendors on hand for the event were:
ASA Financial
fiVISION
Libum
Q2
REPAY
ScienapticAI
SMA Technologies
SWIVEL
Sycorr
Technivation
Technology Happens
Tyfone
All vendors had representatives on hand to support their respective products.
The three judges were:
Brynn Ammon, Jack Henry’s newly named President of Credit Union Solutions
Jeff Marshall, Senior Managing Director at Jack Henry
Dale Phelps, President/CEO at Nebo Credit Union, a local Symitar credit union that did not otherwise participate in the event.
The committee responsible for creating the event consisted of:
Brad Hickey, Manager of Application Development for American Airlines FCU (president, chair)
Brian Sloan, Chief Information Officer for Pioneer Appalachia FCU (vice-president/chair)
Gayle Hargis, Business Analyst/SharePoint Administrator for Neighborhood CU (secretary)
Joe Knapton, Core System Programmer at Educators CU (treasurer)
Mike Blumenthal, CEO at Technology Happens (participants)
Ben Maxim, Chief Innovation Officer at Michigan State University FCU (marketing)
Christian Vargas, Senior System Administrator at Municipal CU (events)
Alex Christenson, Vendor Integration Manager at Jack Henry
Brenda Taylor, Core Systems Manager at Publix Employees FCU
James Burke-Frazier, self-proclaimed Credit Union Consigliere at Jack Henry
Filip Danielewicz, Innovation Partnership Manager at Michigan State University FCU
Meredith Nicholoff, Digital Strategy and Innovations Manager at Michigan State University FCU
Each team gave both itself and its solution names. In addition to Best of Show and runner up, awards were presented for Credit Union Mission, Best Technical Execution, People’s Choice, and Most Production Ready. Vendors also had the option to present awards for the best use of their respective products.
The Best of Show Award went to The Trailblazers for their solution Path to Prosperity, a tool designed to help members plan for, qualify for and obtain a mortgage loan. The short description submitted with their entry read, “For many of our members, buying a home is a major step. For many people, that can be stress-inducing, confusing, and difficult to navigate. Our solution streamlines the loan application process while also educating members on what they can afford and what they can do to increase their likelihood of loan approval, and then ownership.”
The Trailblazers consisted of:
Brodee Gillam, Innovation Specialist at Michigan State University FCU
Joseph Mitchel, Advisory Project Analyst at Jack Henry
Joe Kelepolo, Software Engineer at American Southwest CU
Tim Rogers, System Administrator at Greenville FCU
Ashley Douglas, Programmer Analyst at Via CU
Tushar Singh, Senior Programmer Analyst at Chartway FCU
“This year, we've had the most credit unions that we've ever had participate, which is 29,” American Airlines FCU’s Hickey told Finopotamus. “We've also had the most integrator partners that we've ever had, which is 10. So that's exciting.”
Asked about how teams are chosen, Hickey explained, “We look at organization; we split them out based on organization. We're also looking at skillset. We survey them on registration. We're making sure that every team has a certain number of coders and non-coders, and also boys and girls. We like to make sure we have balance in that respect. It's amazing to see how the personalities come together, and they build chemistry over that first month leading into CU Build.”
Jack Henry has always supported the event, but further formalized its commitment this year such that the event is now officially known as CU Build, Powered by Jack Henry. Speaking on the benefits to Jack Henry, Burke-Frazier – known in Symitar circles as JBF – noted, “The more people that consume our technology, the more we learn.” He added that lessons learned from CU Build have resulted in actual changes to the Symitar core.
“I only hope that CU Build gets bigger because more fresh ideas create more problems that we have to solve that then make our solutions even better,” he continued. “Fifty-four is an amazing number of participants, but 108 would be even more amazing. That way, we’d have twice as many people thinking of twice as many hair-brained schemes and we'd learn twice as much.”
According to Hickey, although the teams are highly competitive, it’s not unusual to see a member of one team helping another team work out an issue. “We jokingly call it a ‘coopetition,’” said Hickey. “It's all about uplifting all ships in our industry. We believe CU Build is a win-win-win because you're helping your own career, you're helping your credit union, and you’re helping the system. It’s the ethos of CU Build. We constantly preach about lifting each other up and building people, building careers, building skills. The relationships established here will last a lifetime.”
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