Over 2,000 delegates to attend Vizag Fintech Festival
Visakhapatnam: Andhra Pradesh government is making elaborate arrangements to celebrate Vizag Fintech International Festival to be held from October 22 to 26.
The Government of Andhra Pradesh, Fintech Valley, Visakhapatnam, in collaboration with one of the world’s biggest organisationSingExis organising the festival at Nonotel Hotel in the city.
Hundreds of decision makers of various companies, start-ups, big financial institutions, most successful business tycoons from AgriTech, EmergeTech and Fintech will participate in the festival.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Special Chief Secretary and IT Advisor to Chief Minister, JAChowdary said that the Fintech Valley, Visakhapatnam, is Government of Andhra Pradesh’s flagship initiative that brings together industry, academia and investors to innovate, co-create and build the Fintech ecosystem.
He said that the Vizag Fintech Festival 2018 is poised to be the nation’s largest Financial Technology event with week-long events and added over 2,000 attendees including decision makers and investors from the Global Fintech fraternity would attend the festival.
The event is considered by the Indian Fintech community as the largest platform to explore opportunities, innovation and partnerships, the Special Chief Secretary pointed out. Chowdary said the Fintech Valley, Visakhapatnam, will conduct $1 Mn challenge as part of Vizag Fintech Festival to enable start-ups to showcase their solutions and get a chance to win upto $1Mn in funding and setup their office in the Port City.
He said applications were invited from start-ups in three tracks including AgriTech, EmergeTech and FinTech and roadshows were conducted in eight locations including Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, Paris, London and Bangalore in this regard. The winner of the challenge would be announced on October 25 during the festival, Chowdary said.
On the first day, Fintech honchos would make golf not just a sport but also a platform where business in Fintech and pleasure would go hand in hand, he said and addedthe signature event would attract over 40 CxOs at an exclusive and prestigious networking event at East Point Golf Club in the city.
As part of the festival,CxO Roundtable with Chief Minister NChandrababu Naidu and IT Minister Nara Lokesh will be arranged in which industry leaders, bankers, regulators, government officials would deliberate on the different facets of the Fintech adoptions, he added.
Student hackathon to identify promising programming and technology talent across colleges would be conducted as part of the festival. The preliminary screening conducted on October 16 and 17 with 400 teams and 1,200 students across 23 colleges from across the state.
As many as 50 teams would be selected for final 30-hour Hackathon to be held on October 21 and 22 in Visakhapatnam. Three final winners would be selected and awarded prize money with Rs 2 lakh, Rs 1 lakh and Rs 50,000 for the top three winners.
The centre of the attraction of the festival is interaction with Sophia, the world’s first humanoid robot with Saudi Arabian citizenship, would interact with the Chief Minister.
Union Ministry of Financejoint secretary Madnesh Kumar Mishra, Union Bank of India Chairman Raj Kiran Rai, and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Chairman RS Sharma will also attend the festival.