Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and Australia’s financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC, are pleased to announce the winners of the inaugural International Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Codeathon 2017.

The Codeathon, held on 18 and 19 November in conjunction with the 3rd Counter-Terrorism Financing Summit 2017, brought together 69 participants from 11 different countries. Participants ranging from FIUs, financial technology (FinTech) and regulatory technology (RegTech) communities, financial institutions and private individuals (software developers, programmers, analysts, designers, engineers, students, or hobbyists), worked to solve the following challenges:

• Where is the money? ​How would you monitor the changing world of value exchange internationally, taking into account emerging technologies and the shift from money to value in myriad forms?

• Who are you? How would you identify people engaging in terrorist funding, money laundering, drugs or other criminal activities with cryptocurrencies or other pseudonymous channels?

• Help your community! How would you identify tangible impending risks to the community to intercept harm pre-emptively, especially relating to money laundering/terrorism financing (ML/TF)?

Participants selected at least one of the challenges and created solutions to address terrorism financing issues effectively, as well as products that signify originality and ease of use.

Through this diverse participation, the Codeathon promoted collaboration between different sectors in addressing the above challenges. Their innovative solutions were presented in various forms including live applications, websites or prototypes.

After a gruelling 32 hours of coding, the participants submitted their solutions with a short video explaining the use and relevance of the product to address the respective challenge. 

The winners of the Codeathon are:

Team categories

• Champion – RM 15,800 ($5,000 AUD): Overwatch – Blockchain Address Validation
• First runner-up – RM 9,500 ($3,000 AUD): SocialHash
• Second runner-up – RM3,200 ($1,000 AUD): LinkAI – The Network Miner
• Best Performed Team – RM 1,600 ($500 AUD) and trophy: Dodge Index

Individual category

• ‘Spirit of CTF Codeathon’ winner – RM 950 ($300 AUD) and trophy: Elliot Ian Shepherd 
• ‘Spirit of CTF Codeathon’ runner-up – Trophy: Yudhitia Mustika Sari

The judges found that the champion, Overwatch – Blockchain Address Validation created a program that showed genuine innovation, originality and most effectively addressed the ‘Help Your Community’ challenge, 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 first runner-up, Social Hash, deserves special mention and recognition for their solution that focused on smart contracts allowing cross-border tracking of data from social networks and investigations. 

BNM and AUSTRAC congratulate all participants for their enthusiasm and collaborative efforts at this year’s Codeathon.

Participants are invited to register for next year’s ASEAN-Australia Codeathon, hosted by AUSTRAC in Sydney from 14–15 March 2018 in the week prior to the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit and Counter-Terrorism Conference.