Bank interested in Whanganui-designed charity app

Whanganui's Mike Price receives the Westpac award from Westpac's Julia Hopkins and Simon Rogerson at the GovHack National awards.

Westpac want to hear more about a mobile app designed by a Whanganui group which aims to make it easier to donate to charities.

The concept was designed by a Whanganui team at this year's GovHack.

GovHack is a 48-hour, Australasia-wide competition for teams or individuals to come up with creative ways to use and present publicly available data.

This year's event was hosted locally by Nga Tai o te Awa in July with Whanganui team MJI winning the Westpac award at the national awards in Wellington.

The bank put up $2000 to challenge teams to come up with a way for charities to carry out street collections in a cashless society.

MJI - Mike Price, James Whiteman, and Ian Tairea - came up with a concept for a mobile app which would allow people to make donations direct to a charity on the street.

"We used the publically available charities register, that was our data set," Mr Price said.

The charity's bank details are verified by the bank and then within its mobile banking app donors would be able to scan a QR code with their phone, which is linked to a charity, to make a direct donation.

Since winning the award Mr Price said they had been contacted by Westpac and he was meeting with representatives who wanted to talk further about the team's idea.

Whanganui has hosted a GovHack event for the past three years and Mr Price said it was a fun, collaborative weekend.

"It's just so good for creativity and coming up with things quickly. You're cobbling things together."