Details have been announced for the 2016 CO-OP THINK Prize: “The Financial Longevity Challenge.”
The competition, sponsored by Mastercard, will have a similar structure as last year, utilizing the OpenIDEO online collaborative platform as a way to find financial technology solutions for aging consumers.
This year’s challenge focuses on the question of how to create financial services that support the dreams and obligations of consumers age 50 and older, and a $10,000 prize will be divided among as many as five finalists who come up with the best ideas to tackle that problem.
According to Samantha Paxson, CO-OP’s chief marketing officer, while many fintech solutions are geared toward younger consumers, those same solutions “are often outside the technology scope of the aged and could pose more harm than good towards the goal of protecting their financial assets. This year’s challenge focuses on the economic impact of the aging population – specifically, the importance and increased relevance of financial services.”
The THINK Prize this year will also include a new element that brings together credit union employees for collaboration raining workshops from CO-OP during November and December. The half-day sessions, CO-OP said, will be led by OpenIDEO facilitators and “Credit Union Innovation Fellows” (credit union professionals working with CO-OP and OpenIDEEO on this initiative). Dates and locations will be announced at a later date, but inquiries may be directed to
This year’s competition will take place in five phases over the course of three months and follow the OpenIDEO format of research, ideas, feedback, refinement and evaluation.
Participants may enter at any time and new ideas may be submitted up until phase two endso n Nov. 27.
This year’s schedule is as follows:
- Phase 1 (ending Oct. 30): During the Research phase, anyone can offer personal perspectives and examples related to the challenge topic.
- Phase 2 (Oct. 31 – Nov. 27): During the Ideas phase, anyone can submit and comment on new ideas.
- Phase 3 (Nov. 28 – Dec. 4): During the short Feedback phase, approximately 25 ideas will be selected to move on to the refinement phase.
- Phase 4 (Dec. 5 – Dec. 30): In the Refinement phase, the ideas with the most potential impact will be refined and built out by the idea authors and their teams.
- On January 12, 2017, five top ideas will be announced based on judging by a panel of OpenIDEO staff and representatives from CO-OP and Mastercard.
For more information is available at
