Coding for a cause: highlights from the Oracle Hackathon

On Friday 6 November, 12 talented students from UCL and the University of Manchester joined us at Pemberton Asset Management's London office for the Oracle Hackathon. 

Working in pairs, they had just one day to build a tool to help with our fundraising activities.

Julie Child welcoming the students

Julie Child, our Executive Director, said: “A huge thank you to every student who gave us their day. Giving their time and skills makes a real difference to a small charity like ours, and it was a pleasure to see what they built. It’s a privilege to support talented young people as they gain valuable work experience." 

Julie Child with two of the students

Eva, a student from UCL said: "A person very close to me has cancer, and I feel good that I can use my technology skills to help people like them."

Sachin Anandikar, Chief Technology Officer at Pemberton, said: "When I walked into the room, the energy was amazing. Everyone was so focused. These students are the future." 

After a day of building and five-minute demos, Umaira Asri from UCL and Jeevan Francis from the University of Manchester were named the winners. Their prize is two weeks’ work experience: one week with Pemberton’s Technology team and one week with us at Oracle. 

Non-Executive Hackathon winners with Keith Jones, Chairman of the Pemberton Group

“I’m very excited, honestly. I’m jumping for joy,” said Umaira. “I came to this hackathon to help me build my skills and meet new people, and the fact I ended up winning first place, that’s the best-case scenario. But even if I didn’t win, I would’ve been so happy going home after today.” 

Jeevan added: “I think we came up with a really cool solution. I’m excited to do some real, impactful work.” 

A huge thank you to Pemberton Asset Management for hosting, and to every student who took part.