An alternative solution to existing authentication methods such as PIN and two-factor authentication proposed by a trio of students from School of Information Systems (SIS) has helped the team clinch the top prize at the 2016 Code::XtremeApps:: 24-hour hackathon organised by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and the IT Standards Committee (ITSC) with support from SPRING Singapore.

Team GCP, comprising Tan Chang Sheng, Jeremy Ong Tee Seng and Beh Min Yan, won the Open Category which is for students from polytechnics, universities, and working professionals. The team walked away with cash prizes worth a total of $9,000.

In addition, Team GCP also won the $1,000 SPRING Standards Award which was given to the team which submitted the best video or essay demonstrating the importance and benefits of standards in FinTech, which was selected as the theme for this year’s competition due to its emergence and large potential to disrupt and benefit citizens with new solutions.

Team GCP’s product is a mobile-compatible web application that showcases how keystroke biometrics can be used to authenticate users on smartphone devices. It captures the users’ keystroke coordinates and timing information of keystroke events, and runs them through a probabilistic machine learning model, using Feature Selection and Classification algorithms like Gaussian Mixture Models and Naive Bayes. These statistical methods help to identify users' identities based on their typing signature, adding an added layer of security above username and PIN.

[Caption: Team ThreeTee is seen here with Mr Yap Chee Yuen (extreme left), Chairman of IT Standards Committee, and Guest-of-Honour Mr Gabriel Lim (extreme right), Co-Managing Director, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore.]

Team ThreeTee, comprising SIS students Tan Kee Hock and Tan Chee Wei, as well as Toh Yi An from Lee Kong Chian School of Business, took the second runner-up spot in the Open Category.

The team devised an intelligent financial advisory app that helps consumers make the right financial choice. The intuitive app utilizes chatbots to understand the user’s financial profile. The data is then used to make intelligent conclusion on the user’s financial profile through ThreeTee’s in-house profiling algorithm. The user experience is further enriched through the use of Natural Language Processing, providing a more intuitive and personalised experience. The app also offers a platform for users to search for financial products that are tailored individually, based on the user’s financial profile.

Kee Hock said, "CodeXtremeApps has been a meaningful journey for my teammates and I. From brainstorming of the idea to actualising it. It may have been an arduous journey, but it was definitely a fruitful one. The 24-hour hackathon not only put our technical skills to the test, but also tested our soft skills. The competition exposed us to the challenges in the Fintech industry, and offered a platform for us to showcase our ideas to solve these problems. We gained much valuable insights from interacting with industry professionals.”

The competing teams were assessed on a range of criteria, including their key ideas and concepts behind the overall solution design, prospective social or commercial value and user-friendliness, as well as usage of software and hardware features.

[Featured photo: Team GCP received the SPRING Standards Award from Ms Choy Sauw Kook, Assistant Chief Executive (Quality & Excellence), SPRING Singapore at the prize-giving ceremony on 18 August 2016.]