MAXIS GBN

The first MAXIS Hackathon saw development, data and insurance experts come together to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the employee benefits industry.

Creating innovative solutions at our first ever Hackathon

As part of our commitment to constantly improve the value that we can offer multinationals and our local insurers, finding new solutions that utilise data and digital technology is hugely important. As part of the MAXIS Data & Digital Innovation Lab, we held our first Hackathon on 7 November where teams tackled some of the great challenges facing the employee benefits (EB) industry using data and exciting technologies. A total of 25 people participated from a diverse background including MAXIS staff, AXA, technology suppliers, local insurance companies, EB and HR professionals, and even data science and maths students.

The teams

Five teams entered the Hackathon, with each team containing a mix of data, development and insurance experts. They worked tirelessly through the day to design and prototype their ideas, which were focused around the three themes of the Hackathon – Re-imagining Insurance, Data Dashboards and Health & Wellness.

Here’s a snapshot of the ideas the teams developed.

  1. HealthyMe delivered an employee-focused health and wellness app, providing employees an easy way to tackle the biggest health cost drivers facing organisations.
  2. Datalicious created a tool to deliver more comprehensive data and facilitate data-quality improvements.
  3. Inception offered a programme of health improvements through education, behaviour change and intervention.
  4. Change one thing focused on presenting single actionable insights to end-users rather than swamping them in their data.
  5. Up to you, down to us merged data and incentives to enhance the value of employee benefits and through bespoke offerings ensue that these benefits are better appreciated.

The judging panel were so impressed by what they saw during the five-minute pitches, that they decided to select two winning teams Datalicious and Up to you, down to us. Datalicious provided excellent analysis and a feasible solution to the issue of quality data, while Up to you, down to us offered a vision of how employee benefits could look in the future.

Harnessing data

While only one of the three challenges explicitly focused on the use of data, it was interesting to see how the teams prominently featured data in the solutions they created.  All the teams looked to harness the vast data available in the EB industry, whether this was through creating advanced dashboards to review data trends, managing data quality or utilising AI to drive behaviour change.

With a number of ideas discussed and shared that could potentially have a transformative impact on some of our solutions, the MAXIS Data & Digital Innovation Lab will be looking to explore their feasibility.

Positive experience all around

Not only were we presented with some great ideas, we also saw how inspirational it can be to bring together people from different backgrounds, with different expertise to work together on shared problems. The energy in the room was evident and you could see great progress being made as everyone looked to use their skills to move towards a prototype and product pitch.

Feedback from participants was very positive, everyone seemed to have enjoyed their time. One participant even commented that it was “a much better event” than the hackathons organised by one very well-known tech giant, a compliment we are very happy to accept. Participants also noted how much they enjoyed the short presentation from our special guest, Gordon Henderson, Innovation Director at AXA PPP. 

Keep your eyes peeled as we continue to explore the latest trends in data and digital innovation in the sector.

A huge thanks to everyone who came along and took part in a fun and truly innovative day.