The one-day event will see policy makers, pentechs and consumer groups working together to raise awareness of pension scams and find solutions to help protect some of the most vulnerable in society.

Cross-company teams (PensionBee, Nutmeg, Agewage and Smart Pension**) will have around six hours to create the concept for an engaging online game and will be required to present it to the judges at the end of the day.

Each team’s efforts will be judged by our expert panel:

Michelle Cracknell CBE (Non-Executive Director at PensionBee and former CEO of the The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS))

Margaret Snowdon OBE (President of the Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA))

Stephanie Baxter (Deputy Personal Finance Editor at the Telegraph)

The winning team’s game will be built by a technology partner (JMAN Group), in partnership with PensionBee and representatives from the teams, with a view to making it available to the public in early 2020.

The event is inspired by “Scams and Ladders”, an investment scams board game, created by Emily Rosenorn-Lanng and Dr Sally Lee of Bournemouth University’s National Centre for Post Qualifying Social Work and Professional Practice (NCPQSW), led by Professor Keith Brown.

The game sees participants that are caught by scamming ‘snakes’ slide down a board, while those beating scammers are rewarded. It aims to raise awareness of common scams and offers advice and guidance on the things consumers should watch out for and how to avoid falling foul of scamming techniques. It was created in conjunction with The National Trading Standards Scams Team, Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI), Burdett Trust and Age UK.

Event timings (subject to change):

09:00 - Pastries, teas and coffees

09:15 - Welcome and Introduction to the “Scams and Ladders” board game, Michelle Cracknell

09:30 - Opportunity to play “Scams and Ladders”

09:45 - Task briefing, Rachael Oku

09:55 - Introduction from JMAN Group, who will be building the winning game

10:00 - Teams start work

12:00 - Lunch served**

15:30 - Coffee break/ Judges arrive / press contacts arrive

15:45 - Introduction from judges, Michelle Cracknell

15:50 - Presentations start

16:30 - Judges deliberate

16:40 - Winner announced, Michelle Cracknell

16:45 - Ends

** We welcome other pentech companies who would like join the hackathon. Please email Rachael Oku (rachael@pensionbee.com) for more information.

Special thanks to Barclays Eagle Lab for sponsoring the event.

Pension Scams Hackathon