Students from six South African universities came together at the 2026 UCT Hackathon to build innovative Open Payments solutions tackling real financial inclusion challenges. Beyond the winning projects, the event showcased the power of collaboration between academia and industry to develop talent, improve technology, and shape the future of open finance.
Financial inclusion starts with trust: people need financial systems that are transparent, relevant, and aligned with how they earn and manage money today. As the digital economy grows, institutions must combine modern technology with education and community-focused design to expand opportunity.
The Interledger engineering team spent a week in Shanghai teaming up with KaiOS to plan the next phase of POS and Interledger Wallet integration. Between serious tech decisions, flip phone nostalgia, bubble tea, and surprise robots, the trip blended real engineering progress with great people, culture, and a lot of fun.
At the 2025 Interledger Hackathon in Mexico City, 47 teams developed practical solutions for interoperable payments, with winners tackling global remittances, device-less payments, education-linked funding, and conversational finance to drive financial inclusion.
The article introduces the BessPay Plugin, a tool that helps MSMEs in emerging economies receive fast, low-cost, cross-border payments in their local currency by integrating Interledger Open Payments with the Sharetribe platform. The project has progressed through technical development, pilot research, and partnerships, positioning BessPay as a promising solution for advancing financial inclusion and enabling broader participation in global digital commerce.
The article discusses key takeaways from the 2025 OFN Conference, emphasizing that building trust in community finance requires "turning headlines into backyard conversations" — meeting people where they are with language that speaks to their daily realities rather than abstract concepts.
Mexico joined the Interledger Network through a month-long tour of student hackathons, events, and fintech engagements across four cities, involving over 500 students from more than 40 universities.
A global open-source event where Interledger invites contributors to build inclusive financial technologies through coding, collaboration, and community participation during Hacktoberfest.
Interledger is hosting student hackathons across Mexico to teach open payments technology and fintech skills, culminating in the 2025 Mexico City Hackathon, where participants develop innovative solutions for financial inclusion and cross-border payments.
The Interledger Foundation’s 2025 Work Weeks in Romania brought global collaborators together to advance Web Monetization and Rafiki, focusing on new publisher tools, scalable infrastructure, and real-world payment integrations. These gatherings accelerated progress toward building an open, inclusive, and interoperable financial network.
The Interledger Hackathon invites innovators to build solutions using Open Payments that expand financial access and interoperability, with a 24-hour event in Mexico City (Nov 8–9, 2025) featuring mentoring, prizes, and community collaboration.
Hackathons are emerging as powerful catalysts for academic innovation, bridging theoretical learning with real-world problem-solving. These short, intensive events create opportunities for students to collaborate across disciplines, experiment with cutting-edge technologies, and design impactful solutions to global challenges.
