Student Hacker Teams Showcase Their Winning Skills at PennApps 3rd Annual Hack-for-Resilience Competition

From Friday, September 11 to Sunday, September 13, the third annual the Hack-for-Resilience competition (“H4R”) was hosted by Wharton Risk Center and the Insurance Information Institute’s (“Triple-I”) Resilience Accelerator as part of the PennAppsXXI hackathon. This year’s competition yielded an impressive array of powerful data, robotics and AI solutions, as well as unique perspectives on catastrophe preparedness and mitigation from the next generation of innovators and leaders.

Organized into two categories—Best Overall Hack for Resilience and Best Application of Insurtech—Hack-for-Resilience III was a virtual event conducted over 36 hours spanning 8:00 pm Friday night through 8:00 am Sunday morning. Students used Slack, Zoom and HopIn digital collaboration platforms, to recruit and select teammates, ideate, seek guidance from mentors, and produce and demonstrate hacks.

This year’s H4R attracted 38 teams from as far away as British Columbia, Brasil and India. Some interesting trends emerged: For 2020, several hacks used gamification—applying the principles and characteristics of video gaming to tasks and problem-solving—as a technique to teach and test catastrophe resilience. This year also saw numerous student innovators drawing inspiration from their own families’ recent natural disaster experiences.

A panel of judges that included Dr. Carolyn Kousky, Wharton Risk Center’s Executive Director and Dr. Michel Leonard, the Triple-I’s Vice President and Senior Economist, selected first- and second-place winning hacks in both categories. They are:

BEST APPLICATION OF INSURTECH

Winner: INSURA

Developed as a way to get households into a “resilience frame of mind,” INSURA uses location and historical loss data, to incentivize catastrophe resilience by making a game of preparedness and mitigation. Users enter information about their homes and known risks, and INSURA suggests mitigation activities and common household maintenance chores. Players are scored by calculated potential insurance premium savings.

Runner-up: CLAIM CART

Created in response to recent wildfires, CLAIM CART makes it easier for users to file claims for insured losses by guiding them step-by-step through creating an effective household inventory to receive maximum payout for their lost possessions. The app works by querying insurer and public loss and item pricing data to help people prepare for a disaster by more accurately presenting and organizing information about the contents of their home.

BEST OVERALL HACK-FOR-RESILIENCE

Winner: AIR.LY

Inspired by the development team members experiences during recent California wildfires, AIR.LY is billed as “the one-stop shop [for finding] safe outdoor retreats during wildfires.” AIR.LY helps delivers vital, in-real-time help to an often-overlooked group: persons afflicted with respiratory issues or other health complications.

Runner-up: Saving Our Souls (S.O.S.)

Designed and built by a team of high-schoolers, S.O.S. is story-mode game that allows players to choose disaster scenarios that present multiple options to instruct on fire and flood safety, as well as effective preparedness and evacuation practices.

First place-winning team members will each receive a $200 Amazon gift card for their winning hacks, while the runners-up each will receive a $100 Amazon gift card. New for 2020 is an additional reward for first place winners, entry into a Resilience Accelerator Lightning Rounds ideas showcase, where teams will demo their winning hacks to a panel of insurance innovation leaders and investors.

The Wharton Risk Center and the Triple-I wish to again extend our thanks to all who contributed to making Hack-for-Resilience III and PennAppsXXI a rousing success!

By James Ballot, Senior Advisor, Strategic Communications, Triple-I