Experts from Facebook, Google to Judge Best Mobile App Ideas for Financial Services

The U.S. Treasury announced today that experts from Google and Facebook will help judge mobile app ideas for its MyMoneyAppUp Challenge.

The U.S. Treasury Department is looking to experts from Facebook and Google, among other organizations, to judge ideas for financial services mobile apps in its MyMoneyAppUp Challenge. The challenge is a public competition asking people to submit ideas and designs for mobile apps to help mobile users manage their finances.

The Treasury has teamed up with the D2D Fund and the Center for Financial Services Innovation to present the competition. The full list of judges, announced today, includes Katie Burke Mitic, director of Facebook's Platform Marketing; Sendhill Mullainathan, a Harvard economics professor; and Jonathan Weiner, who works on business development for Google's payments team.

The MyMoneyAppUp Challenge is split into two parts: the IdeaBank and an app design competition. The winners of each part of the challenge will win $25,000.

The IdeaBank part asks the public to submit app ideas in 140 characters or less. The ideas are then voted on by the public and the judges pick a winner from the top 10 vote winners, who will win prizes ranging from $250-$1000.

So far 129 ideas have been submitted. The most popular idea at the moment is "an app that let's me enter purchases and rate/track how happy they did or didn't make me over time, so I can adjust my spending accordingly," according to published reports.

The app design challenge asks users to fill out an online form describing the app's concept and feasibility, and how the app will help people deal with their finances. The designs have to be submitted by August 12 and the panel of judges announced today will then judge the submissions. The winner will receive $10,000, the next two runners up will receive $5000 each and two honorable mentions will $2500 each.

Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio