RBC Next Great Innovator Hackathon generates winning ideas to help small businesses thrive

"Competing in hackathons like NGI gives me the chance to build something from scratch and test new ideas," said Jovellanos, whose augmented reality project tied for second place. "It's just so cool to apply your knowledge and turn it into something completely different that will solve a problem or positively impact someone's business."

Jovellanos just completed a summer work term with RBC, but for other students another benefit of participating in the hackathon is the ample opportunity to learn about RBC and gain exposure to the recruitment team. As one of the largest employers of tech professionals in Canada, RBC is committed to identifying those extremely talented youth who display superior business and technological skills.  RBC has long legacy of helping youth realize their potential through a wide range of initiatives. Programs like NGI and RBC Amplify help young people find and pursue their path to success with confidence.

About RBC's Next Great Innovator
Since its start in 2006, the RBC Next Great Innovator (NGI) Challenge has received over 700 post-secondary student team submissions and almost 3,000 student participants. Prior to 2013, NGI was strictly an essay competition. Since then, three of RBC's four events have been prototyping hackathons.

Over the years, numerous ideas put forward by NGI participants have been tested and streamlined in the RBC Innovation Experience Lab and some have been developed for use at RBC. One example is RBC Connect, RBC's digital social collaboration tool, which was the eventual implementation of an idea submitted during the 2009 challenge, which sought to identify ways to transform the workplace to match the needs of an evolving and diverse workforce. Visit www.facebook.com/RBCNGI or follow on Twitter (@rbcinnovator).

About RBC
Royal Bank of Canada is Canada's largest bank, and one of the largest banks in the world, based on market capitalization. We are one of North America's leading diversified financial services companies, and provide personal and commercial banking, wealth management, insurance, investor services and capital markets products and services on a global basis. We have over 80,000 full- and part-time employees who serve more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the U.S. and 36 other countries. For more information, please visit rbc.com.‎

RBC helps communities prosper, supporting a broad range of community initiatives through donations, community investments, sponsorships and employee volunteer activities. In 2015, we contributed more than $121 million to causes around the world.

SOURCE RBC