Australia's best developers and entrepreneurs vie for a chance at the USD$100,000 Grand Prize

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Sydney, January 29, 2015 - MasterCard today announced that the MasterCard Masters of Code competition will begin its search for the best coders in the world in Sydney, Australia on February 7th and 8th. The first of ten hackathons in the year-long series, the Sydney installment will focus on innovating for mobile commerce. The event will challenge the best and brightest of Australia's developers and entrepreneurs to create the next big thing and have a chance at competing against master coders from across the globe in the Grand Finale Masters of Code Hackathon in Silicon Valley in December.

Sponsored and hosted by MasterCard and organised by AngelHack, Masters of Code has one goal: to bring together the world's top developers, designers and entrepreneurs to take on the MasterCard APIs to build the future of commerce. Using these APIs, developers will have access to unsurpassed assets, data insights, services and products from MasterCard that are focused on powering commerce on a global scale. The participating teams at this event will compete with a focus towards driving the next generation of commerce applications in Australia and globally.

The Sydney event will feature an esteemed panel of judges who will choose the winning team based on their innovation's impact, design, creativity, simplicity and best usage of MasterCard's APIs. The judging panel will include:

  • Rocky Scopelliti, group general manager, Industry Centre of Excellence at Telstra Global Enterprise Services
  • Adam Bender, senior enterprise IT journalist for Computerworld, CIO and Techworld
  • James Taylor, market lead for Australia and New Zealand, Yieldif
  • Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin, founder & CEO, Bluechilli, Startup Accelerator
  • Eddie Grobler, division president, MasterCard Australasia
  • Mario Shiliashki, senior vice president, MasterCard Open API

Australia's tech startup sector is growing at a rapid pace. In fact, a recent Google Australia and PWC report found that it has the potential to contribute $109 billion or 4% of GDP to the Australian economy and 540,000 jobs by 2033. Ann Cairns, president, international markets for MasterCard and former coder herself, will deliver a keynote address to the very entrepreneurs and developers who are driving this growth today, highlighting the importance of innovation for mobile commerce in Australia.

Eddie Grobler, division president, MasterCard Australasia said, "MasterCard Australia is delighted that we are the first country to launch our global hackathon series. Australia has a thriving culture of start-ups, especially in the financial and technology spaces, so it's the ideal location to tap into some exciting new ideas. The event also aligns with MasterCard's focus on innovating across all areas of our business, as we meet the changing needs of business and consumers."

Sydney, Australia kicks off the 2015 MasterCard Masters of Code competition followed by events in Hong Kong (March 21-22) and Singapore (March 28-29).  Additional locations for the Masters of Code series include cities in Brazil, Canada, Israel, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States, among others. For more information about the MasterCard Masters of Code competition including rules, judging criteria, prizes, etc., please visit www.MastersofCode.com.

About MasterCard

MasterCard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com , is a technology company in the global payments industry. We operate the world's fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. MasterCard's products and solutions make everyday commerce activities - such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances - easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MasterCardAU ,@MasterCardAP and @MasterCardNews, join the discussion on the Cashless Pioneers Blog and subscribe for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau .

About AngelHack

AngelHack is the world's largest and most diverse global hacker community, helping to drive open innovation of tech products, platforms and brands with extraordinary smarts, scale and speed.  Known as pioneers of global hackathons, for more than 3 years, AngelHack has partnered with corporate change-makers at Comcast NBCUniversal, Hasbro, IBM, and Hearst to run themed, global initiatives designed to rapidly get them ideas with market traction while helping them build relationships with the workforce of the future.www.angelhack.com.

Media Contacts

Alana Morton

MasterCard Australia

+61 2 9466 3889
alana_morton@mastercard.com

Belinda White

Weber Shandwick

+61 2 9994 4454

bwhite@webershandwick.com

Kelsey Ruiz

AngelHack

916-412-8709

kelsey@angelhack.com

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