It was a busy weekend for a group of Team Daugherty – St. Louis consultants as they participated in a Reinsurance Group of America hackathon event. RGA World Headquarters in Chesterfield, Mo. transformed their cafeteria and conference room areas into the home base for over 60 participants as they competed in the RGA Blockchain Hackathon.

Daugherty, an RGA partner for this event, was well represented. All three teams walked away with awards for their hard work. The team of Alex White, Joe Shehata, Marshall Bono and Will Stampley came away with a close second place finish. Andrew Maxwell, Mark Schilling, Suzanne Zimmerman and Ted Berger were presented 1st Honorable Mention. The third team – Lucia Dell Pino (RGA), Alex Gillete, Joseph Ondrus and Venus Patel – earned the Best use of IBM BlueMix recognition.

This invite-only event differed from your typical hackathon. RGA encouraged Team Daugherty employees from all of the Lines of Service to participate. The challenge that participants faced was designed to help RGA fully utilize blockchain technology.

Before the event began the hackers were supplied with educational tools about blockchain technology. Materials ranging from seminars to white papers were provided to help participants succeed in crafting the best solution possible during the timed event.

When the 5:00 pm deadline came on Saturday judging began. Teams had the opportunity to pitch their solutions. The group that increased the effectiveness and efficiency of RGA through blockchain technology won the prize money and earned the opportunity to pitch to RGA leadership for the opportunity to continue to build their solution.

Juan Burriel, Senior Manager at Daugherty, issued the initial challenge a few weeks ago to the account teams to participate in the event. After seeing the success that all three teams experienced this weekend he said, “We had a fantastic opportunity to showcase Daugherty’s skills and understanding of the industry and business, and our teams delivered. My hope is that this is just the first of many and that our consultants keep responding to the challenge in the same fashion.”

If you weren’t able to participate in the RGA Blockchain Hackathon, don’t stress! GlobalHack VI is only a few weeks away. This event is being held at Chaifetz Arena from October 21-23 and is designed for participants to solve a single civic technology problem centered around homelessness. With $1 million in cash prizes being awarded to the top teams, this hackathon is sure to draw in top talent from across the country. A Team Daugherty group took home the top prize last year and there are already multiple Daugherty teams registered to defend the crown. Interested in participating in GlobalHack VI? It’s not too late to register. You can use the discount code “DBSGH6” to receive 50% off admission until September 30th.