Zurich, January 20, 2010. In December 2009 Starmind participated in a national contest aiming at finding novel Web 2.0 approaches to boost Switzerland’s largest Bank UBS. In particular UBS was looking for Web 2.0 concepts between 5 and 10 pages focusing on UBS client facing applications such as mobile or E-banking. The deadline for submission was December 24, 2009 while the winners were announced on January 18, 2010. UBS posted rewards of CHF 5000.- cash for the winning solutions.
A novel type of collaborative bank service for clients: Starmind User Amancio Bouza wins competition
Dr. Andreas Hoffmann from UBS Business Development, section client workbench, presented the outcome of the Web 2.0 Competition during the 12th Web Monday hosted by Amazee. He was very pleased that 35 great ideas and concepts have been entered with many ideas for UBS to follow up on. The handed in solutions were evaluated in terms of ease of use (clients, client advisors), applicability, innovation and presentation. Congratulations go to the three winners:
- Amancio Bouza, Starmind Gold Fellow
- Roland Studer
- Martin Moser & Roger Signer
Amancio’s concept for UBS was selected as winning solution since he proposed a new way of bank service based on collaborative filtering. Amancio states: “Clients do not want dependency in advisory to a single client advisor. Instead they prefer to learn what other clients at UBS bought having the same or a similar portfolio. A novel service could indicate for example – ‘you bought item X. Users that bought item X also bought item Y.’ That way the dependency on a single client advisor can be reduced and the satisfaction level rises.”
Holder of the Starmind Golden Brain and various Starmind Awards
Amancio Bouza received his MSc degree in computer science from the University of Zurich in 2007. Since 2007 Amancio is a doctoral student and research assistant at both the software evolution and architecture lab (SEAL) and at the Dynamic and Distributed Information Systems Group (DDIS) at the University of Zurich. Amancio’s main interest focus on recommender systems enhanced with Semantic Web technologies. Amancio joined Starmind in February 2009. Soon he qualified for the Starmind bronze, silver and golden fellowship titles. Starmind fellowships are awarded for outstanding solutions and repeatedly received positive ratings by Starmind question posers.
Amancio Bouza was awarded the Starmind golden Brain cup in January 2010 for more than 25 successfully solved questions. Several solutions rank among the top Starmind solutions. Pascal Kaufmann, CEO of Starmind says: “Amancio’s background, research and Starmind solutions are just impressive. By virtue of Starmind users like Amancio Starmind attracts oustanding talents around the globe and generates added value to Starmind users.”
The kind of concepts and solutions Amancio has submitted on Starmind have on one hand saved months of work and manpower to those posting their challenges on Starmind. Amancio on the other hand invested a few hours of brainpower in his field of expertise, during breaks or over weekend hence earning more than 5000.- CHF (~5000.- USD) cash. Besides earning rewards, Amancio benefits from an increased visibility towards and within UBS, one of Switzerland largest employers. Learn more about Amancio here: http://www.starmind.com/user/1293
View here the article about Starmind “Schweizer Internet-Unternehmen sammeln für Haiti” featured on news.ch.
