Students win McCann FitzGerald hackathon with white collar crime reporting app

A team of four third-level students have triumphed in McCann FitzGerald’s Legal Apps Hackathon, the first-ever legal hackathon to use AI technology, with their white collar crime reporting app.

The winning team was made up of Bronwyn Hogan and Darragh McDonagh, final-year law students at Trinity College; Orla Moriarty, a first-year computer science student at Griffith College; and Stephen Pearson, a first-year computer science student at DIT.

The “White Collar Crime Reporting Advisor App”, developed during the 24-hour marathon challenge at McCann FitzGerald’s Dublin office using Neota Logic’s AI software, netted the €2,000 prize.

The online tool allows users of varying seniority in corporate institutions, in less than one hour, to evaluate whether information available to them is reportable to An Garda Síochána.

Using a dynamic series of questions that addresses each of the elements of section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act 2011, the user is then provided immediately with an online risk analysis report.

Barry Devereux, managing partner at McCann FitzGerald, said: “I would like to offer my congratulations to all the participants in the first ever Legal Apps Hackathon.

“The enthusiasm throughout the 24-hour challenge was palpable and it was fantastic to see such talented young students collaborating to bring together legal solutions business ideas, technology, and design.

“We were very impressed with the standard of entries. It made it a tough job for the judges but ultimately, we chose the White Collar Crime Reporting Advisor app as the best overall app for its commercial potential and market-readiness, its strong user interface and the benefits it offers clients.”

The app will go into further testing with the firm’s digital services team.

Other awards presented included: