BattleHack London

PayPal’s BattleHack was a 24-hour hackathon organized by PayPal and Braintree, bringing together developers from across the region to create innovative applications that addressed local challenges. The event fostered a collaborative environment, encouraging creativity and technical excellence among attendees, with participants competing for a chance to win a $100,000 grand prize and the coveted Battle Axe trophy.

As part of a team of four called Team @Risk, we placed second in 2014 and first in 2015. Our winning app applied behavioral tracking to senior citizens in order to alert their children or carers in the event of a medical emergency, integrating a massive amount of APIs and technologies including Braintree, Estimote, Localz, Pusher, SendGrid and Twilio.

The competition was fierce, with 45 teams from England, Romania, Spain, Berlin and Poland competing for a place at the World Finals. As reported by PayPal, we went on to represent London at the World Finals in San Francisco that November.