How fintech provider Candescent turned one hackathon into a quarterly AI program

In 48 hours, 460+ employees formed more than 120 teams and submitted 120 projects during Candescent's first company-wide hackathon. The digital banking and fintech platform provider designed the event on Devpost for Teams to give employees dedicated time to move beyond discussion and experimentation and build practical AI solutions. Several of those projects were quickly adopted by teams looking to improve customer experiences, streamline operations, accelerate development, and enhance internal efficiency, moving into active development or production within weeks of the event ending.

Since its first hackathon, Candescent has begun building a repeatable process for turning employee ideas into real business outcomes, an effort led by Chief Technology Officer Satheesh Ravala and the Candescent Hackathon Team that organized the event.

"The hackathon demonstrated what happens when talented teams are given dedicated time, clear business priorities, and a secure framework for innovation. In just 48 hours, employees developed solutions spanning roadmap acceleration, security, payments, onboarding, and operational efficiency. The speed with which several of those ideas advanced toward implementation reinforced the value of making innovation a repeatable capability at Candescent." — Satheesh Ravala, Chief Technology Officer, Candescent

Key outcomes:

• 460+ employees participated globally and submitted 120 projects across six themes
• Almost every team submitted a finished project within 48 hours
• Several of the Top 10 projects moved into active development or production within weeks of the hackathon, with the rest under evaluation for Candescent's roadmap
• The Top 10 projects spanned roadmap acceleration, security, payments, and onboarding
• The results made the case to leadership to turn the hackathon into a recurring program

"The strongest data point was the near-complete conversion of teams into submitted projects, reinforced by the quality of the Top 10 and the number of ideas worthy of leadership review. That made it clear that this should become an ongoing innovation mechanism, not a one-time event," said Ravala.

Company profile

Candescent's Intelligent Banking platform provides digital banking technology that financial institutions use to power connected, secure banking experiences for their customers.

Candescent sees a quarterly recurring hackathon program as one of the ways it keeps growing the platform's capabilities and operational efficiency, while giving employees a visible path to contribute ideas and build new skills. The program also supports broader goals around AI adoption, product acceleration, quality, security, and employee engagement.

Key considerations and goals

Going into the hackathon, the Candescent team defined success around four things:

• Strong participation across the organization, demonstrating enthusiasm for innovation and AI-driven problem-solving.
• Cross-functional collaboration, bringing together diverse perspectives and expertise to solve meaningful challenges.
• High-quality, business-relevant project submissions, focused on real opportunities to improve customer experiences, operational efficiency, or product capabilities.
• Actionable prototypes and learning, highlighting how AI and emerging technologies can make banking more intelligent, connected, secure, and impactful.

"In a rapidly evolving financial technology landscape, innovation cannot be confined to annual planning cycles or roadmap discussions," said Ravala. "Some of the most valuable ideas originate from the people closest to our clients, products, operations, and day-to-day challenges."

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The challenge: AI must be secure, explainable, and valuable

Like many fintech leaders, Candescent recognized that scaling AI innovation in a highly regulated environment requires a disciplined framework that balances experimentation, governance, security, and business value. Employees across Candescent were already exploring how AI could accelerate meaningful work. 

The hackathon provided a focused, secure, and business-aligned environment to transform that interest into working prototypes tied to client impact, platform quality, operational efficiency, and product innovation. 

To build on this momentum, Candescent needed an environment where employees could experiment freely while keeping the industry's strict operational standards front and center.

"For Candescent, AI innovation must be practical, secure, explainable, and aligned to the needs of financial institutions," said Ravala. "The hackathon provided a structured way for teams to explore high-value use cases while keeping governance, trust, and measurable business outcomes at the center."

As part of managing the hackathon's logistics, the team also needed the ability to customize the judging experience to align with Candescent's business priorities.

The solution: A hackathon built for banking excellence

Candescent ran the hackathon as a 48-hour sprint organized around six business-aligned themes, including roadmap acceleration, platform reliability and quality, security enhancements, operational intelligence and AI-enabled productivity, payments modernization, and onboarding.

Devpost for Teams handled logistics, registration, team formation, submissions, judging, and communication in one place, letting Candescent's organizers focus on the event itself instead of the administration behind it.

"What truly differentiated Devpost for Teams was that they became far more than a technology provider—they became a strategic partner throughout the planning, execution, and governance of the event. From the outset, the Devpost team invested time in understanding Candescent's goals, culture, and vision for innovation." — The Candescent Hackathon Team

#1 Multiple projects reached production within weeks

Project submissions spanned roadmap acceleration, product signals, quality and security metrics, AI-powered development, operational intelligence, payments, ATM privacy and security, and onboarding.

"One of the clearest indicators of success was that many projects continued beyond the event itself. The focus was never just on identifying winners—it was on uncovering ideas with the potential to improve products, operations, client experiences, and the future of banking." — Satheesh Ravala, CTO, Candescent

Within weeks of the hackathon, multiple projects had moved into active development, which helped make the case to Candescent's leadership for continued investment in the program.

#2 Nearly every team submitted a finished project

Participation and submission volume were two metrics used to help measure the success of the hackathon.

"The headline proof points were strong: over 460 participants, over 120 teams, and 120 submitted projects in 48 hours. That means nearly every team that formed submitted a project, which is a strong indicator of commitment and follow-through." — The Candescent Hackathon Team

The team also saw meaningful distribution across geographies and themes, with winning projects coming from India, the U.S., Canada, and Serbia.

#3 A secure way to experiment with AI

The hackathon gave teams a structured environment to explore AI-driven innovation while maintaining the governance, security, and trust requirements expected within the financial services industry.

"A hackathon helps because it gives teams a safe, structured way to experiment within defined boundaries while staying anchored to real business problems ... That kind of hands-on experience helps teams move quickly from ideas to implementation while creating shared understanding across the organization." — Satheesh Ravala, CTO, Candescent

That structure also allowed teams from different departments to collaborate.

"Hackathons are one of the most effective ways to turn AI strategy into practical problem-solving because they turn learning into doing ... They also cut across organizational silos, which is critical for AI adoption because the best use cases often sit at the intersection of product, engineering, operations, client experience, security, and data," said Ravala.

#4 Results convinced leadership to launch a quarterly program

The combination of participation, quality, and business relevance is what showed leadership the value of scaling the program. Submissions mapped directly to strategic priorities such as accelerating the product roadmap, strengthening reliability and security, improving operational intelligence, and applying AI to real workflows, showing leadership the ideas weren't disconnected from the business.

"What stood out was the combination of participation, quality, execution, and direct alignment to business priorities. The results demonstrated that innovation is strongest when teams are empowered to solve real problems that matter to clients, employees, and the business. That made the decision to establish a recurring program straightforward." — Satheesh Ravala, CTO, Candescent

Candescent is now building a quarterly hackathon cadence, along with a more structured process for incubating and funding the ideas worth pursuing. That program is also shaped by where Candescent sees AI heading next: beyond generating content or automating simple tasks, toward agentic systems that can reason over information, orchestrate workflows, and take action. Ravala connects that shift back to practical, client-focused outcomes:

"As AI continues to evolve, our focus remains on identifying practical applications that improve experiences, increase efficiency, strengthen security, and accelerate innovation for financial institutions," said Ravala. "Programs like this help us continuously explore what's possible while remaining grounded in client value."

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#5 A judging rubric built around Candescent's priorities

Managing the judging process was a major consideration for Candescent going into the hackathon. Devpost built a framework around Candescent's five-part rubric: innovation, business value, technical feasibility, client impact, and strategic alignment.

"The Devpost team partnered with us to create an enhanced judging framework that accommodated our requirements ... Their willingness to adapt the platform to our needs was instrumental in the success of the event," said the Candescent Hackathon Team.

#6 Devpost support extended well beyond the platform

Devpost for Teams gave the hackathon a centralized hub for participants and organizers to access, with clear submission requirements and evaluation criteria set from the outset. Throughout the event, teams had consistent communication and access to mentors and business leaders who helped them refine their ideas.

"Devpost for Teams stood out because it combined enterprise-scale event management with a participant experience that felt intuitive and engaging." — The Candescent Hackathon Team

Beyond the platform, the Candescent and Devpost teams collaborated on planning a hackathon that would maximize results.

"The Devpost team brought deep experience running enterprise-scale hackathons and provided valuable guidance on everything from event structure and participant engagement to judging processes and governance," said the Candescent Hackathon Team. "Their expertise helped us avoid common pitfalls and create an experience that was both scalable and impactful for our global workforce."

Conclusion

Candescent's hackathon program gives its global teams dedicated time to build practical AI solutions tied to real business priorities, from roadmap acceleration to security, payments, and client experience. The results from its first hackathon set a strong bar: 460+ employees formed more than 120 teams and submitted 120 finished projects in 48 hours, with a top-10 slate of ideas tied directly to the roadmap and several already in production within weeks. That combination of participation, quality, and speed is why Candescent is turning the hackathon into a recurring part of how the business operates.

Devpost for Teams handled registration, submissions, and a judging framework built around Candescent's own business priorities, freeing the organizing team to focus on the event itself rather than the logistics behind it.

Ready to run a hackathon that drives AI adoption and ships real projects? Book a demo to see how Devpost for Teams can help.