AUSTRAC, Australia’s financial intelligence agency, will bring together more than 80 future leaders in technology at the inaugural ASEAN-Australia Codeathon in Sydney from 14 to 16 March 2018.

Participants will undertake a gruelling 32 hours of coding to solve complex challenges, with up to six participants per team. Their innovative solutions may be presented in various forms including live applications, websites or prototypes, which may serve as precursors to innovative digital solutions to fight terrorism financing.

AUSTRAC CEO, Nicole Rose PSM, said AUSTRAC is encouraging participation from ASEAN and Australia’s growing fintech, regtech and start-up communities, financial institutions and financial intelligence units (FIUs).

“Countering terrorism financing is a challenge that crosses regional borders, technical expertise and business sectors. A collaborative approach to national security innovation is required to disrupt and dismantle all means of terrorism financing in our region.

“We saw great success with the first Codeathon event of this kind held in Kuala Lumpur in November 2017, and are looking forward to seeing similar outcomes from Sydney".

The 2017 CTF Summit winning team created a program that showed genuine innovation, by providing cryptocurrency users and platforms with an artificial intelligence-enabled service to red-flag blockchain addresses that have been directly involved in, or linked to, suspicious activity.

The 2018 ASEAN-Australia Codeathon will further enhance these concepts and is one of the most innovative initiatives led by AUSTRAC. It will bring like-minded individuals from different parts of the region together to collaborate and protect our community from the threats of serious crime and terrorism in our region.

AUSTRAC and the ASEAN-Australia Codeathon are proud to be associated with the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit. The Codeathon is an important event in the week leading into this year's historic ASEAN-Australia Special Summit, to be held in Sydney on 16-18 March. The ASEAN-Australia Special Summit will provide an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen ASEAN-Australia relations and deepen our strategic and economic partnership with South-East Asia.

The Codeathon builds on the strong regional partnerships between FIUs and industry, bringing together technology and innovation specialists to tackle regional challenges in the fight against terrorism.

AUSTRAC is encouraging designers, analysts, engineers, financial institutions, subject matter experts and other skilled and motivated individuals to register for the Codeathon by 2 February 2018.