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FHICTchaingers Team makes young people aware of pension issues through microtransactions
FHICTchaingers, a team of Fontys Hogeschool ICT Eindhoven, has won the first prize in the “Future of Pensions” category during last weekend’s Blockchain Hackathon in Groningen. The former sugar factory hosted the second edition of the largest physical Blockchain Hackathon in the world. Four days and nights, 700 tech pioneers from all over the world, divided into 63 teams, started working with applications using blockchain technology.

The FHICTChaingers (consisting of students, alumni and a teacher from Fontys Hogeschool ICT Eindhoven: Steve Thijssen, Eveline Druncks, Sebastiaan Verdonk, Toon van Strijp, Jordy Vonk, Tim van Iersel and Erdinc Sacan) aim to use their solution to make young people aware of their pensions. They do this with the aid of microtransactions. Eveline Druncks explains: “Young people are not thinking about their pensions at all. Awareness among young people is an issue for pension funds. As a team, we want to tackle this by making young people think about their pension with microtransactions. At every touchpoint, for example when receiving deposits, returning old mobile phones, or in the event of differences in electricity drop rates, you can decide to receive the amount now or to have it deposited in your pension fund. We do this using Blockchain technology.”

The jury members were very enthusiastic about the idea. These included the State Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops, Mattereum founder and CEO Vinay Gupta and Special Envoy for Startup Delta ZKH Prince Constantine of Oranje-Nassau.