[January 31, 2013]

FinCapDev Announces 13 Finalist Teams to Build Next Generation of Financial Capability Mobile Apps

The Financial Capability Development Competition (FinCapDev, http://fincapdev.com) has named 13 Finalist Teams to develop new mobile apps that will help working Americans make smart financial choices and gain better access to financial services. The apps proposed by the Finalist Teams address a variety of challenges, ranging from student debt decision-making to impulse spending management to peer lending to tapping social networks for financial advice to new takes on budgeting and more. Over 300 individuals participated in the app proposal phase of FinCapDev.

The FinCapDev Finalist Teams are:

• Nancy Anderson of Clinton, Mississippi
• Eric Bell and Guille Carlos of Arlington, Virginia
• Manel Baucells and Rajesh Jha of Los Angeles, California
• Karen Carlson, Dr. Michael Moshell, Brett Connolly, Jaffy Escarcha, Greg Zanmiller, Alexander Chernoff, and Michael Fried (News - Alert) of Ocoee, Florida
• Lex Fridman of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Ben Knelman, Dante Cassanego, Cristina Gorrino, and Katie Nienow of Mountain View, California
• Itai Leibowitz, Vanya Pasheva and Marcos Siqueira of New York City, New York
• Vanessa Lindley of Queens Village, New York and Christi Baker and Matthew McGraw of San Francisco, California
• Floyd Newsum, Melanie Mosley and Dr. Michael Wong of Houston, Texas
• Floyd Newsum, Janice Newsum, Melanie Mosley of Houston, Texas
• Francisco Prat of New York City, New York
• Grace Salas, Alex Sloan, Harold Marrero, Sophia Shah of Miami, Florida
• Richard Trask of Wilmington, Delaware, Matthew Schmidt of New Castle, Delaware and Jason Mastriana of Newark, Delaware

To learn more about each Finalist Team, visit http://www.fincapdev.com/finalists/.

"We're tremendously excited to support and work with this talented, dynamic group of innovators," said Timothy Flacke, Executive Director of the D2D Fund. "The fact that they hail from all over the country, and range from educators to entrepreneurs to engineers, reinforces our belief that innovation in the financial capability and access field really does come from anywhere. We're eager to see the completed apps these teams produce."

To learn more about the partner-provided resources that FinCapDev Finalist Teams will have the opportunity to access, visit http://www.fincapdev.com/what/expert-resources/.

"This marks the beginning of an ecosystem focused on leveraging innovation to improved financial capability and access to high quality products and services," said CFSI President & CEO Jennifer Tescher. "From funders to finalist teams, we're thrilled to see such engagement. We're eager to see this ecosystem thrive and grow."

Finalists will build fully functional apps by late spring, at which point they will present their apps to a panel of high-profile, expert judges at an event hosted by FinCapDev administrators, the D2D Fund and the Center for Financial Services Innovation. The $100,000 prize purse, including a $50,000 Grand Prize, will be awarded at this event.

Flacke and Tescher acknowledged the contributions of many enterprises in advancing the apps, including the teams at Betterment and GoPago, for graciously donating time and resources to insure the technical feasibility of all Finalist app proposals.

Supporting FinCapDev partners throughout the competition include the Applied Innovation (News - Alert) Institute, Braintree, Citi, Dell Social Innovation Challenge, Deloitte, EachScape, Facebook, H&R Block, ideas42, MasterCard, Women Innovate Mobile, and Yodlee. FinCapDev is made possible thanks to the generous financial support of the Ford Foundation, the Citi Foundation, and Omidyar Network.

To follow the progress of FinCapDev Finalist Teams, visit the FinCapDev blog (http://fincapdev.com/blog) and follow on Twitter (News - Alert) (http://twitter.com/fincapdev) or Facebook (News - Alert) (http://facebook.com/fincapdev).

About FinCapDev

The Financial Capability Development Competition (FinCapDev, http://fincapdev.com) is a nationwide $100,000 challenge to develop new mobile apps to help working Americans make smart financial choices and get better access to financial services. In addition to bringing approximately six high-impact apps to market and available for consumers use, the competition will create an ecosystem of American innovators, technology companies, software developers, financial service firms, investors, and nonprofits to foster innovation in new mobile financial tools.

About the Center for Financial Services Innovation

The Center for Financial Services Innovation is the nation's leading authority on financial services for underbanked consumers. Since 2004, its programs have focused on informing, connecting, and investing - gathering enhanced intelligence, brokering and supporting productive industry relationships, and fostering best-in-class products and strategies. CFSI works with leaders and innovators in the business, government and nonprofit sectors to transform the financial services landscape. For more on CFSI, go to http://cfsinnovation.com or follow on Twitter at @cfsinnovation.

About The Doorways to Dreams (D2D) Fund

Doorways to Dreams (D2D) Fund strengthens the financial opportunity and security of low and moderate income consumers by innovating, incubating, and stimulating new financial products and policies. Operating at the intersection of the private, non-profit and public sectors, D2D incubates and promotes practical applications with social impact that might otherwise lack a champion to nurture and bring them to market. D2D was incorporated as a 501 (c) 3 not-for-profit organization in 2000 and is headquartered in Allston neighborhood of Boston, across the street from Harvard University's recently opened Innovation Lab. For more on D2D, go to www.d2dfund.org

[ InfoTech Spotlight's Homepage ]