Science of Savings Challenge #1
Design the simplest, most effective budgeting tool possible for users with high-income volatility.
This tool should:
Empower users to increase their savings and financial stability
Take minimal time and effort to use
Respond specifically to the needs and challenges of high income volatility and low-income users
For some insight into the unique challenges this population might face, check out the SaverLife Research page.
The winning team(s) will be publicly featured on SaverLife’s website and media outreach, and their solutions will be made publicly available to the financial wellness community to help real users.
Submission Guidelines
To participate in this Challenge, register above with your name and institution. You’ll receive an invite to a Slack workspace for discussion and collaboration.
Submissions should be designed especially for Americans with low incomes and high income volatility.
Since an effective budgeting tool might take many forms, we welcome various solution formats, for example:
Code / Web apps
Printable PDFs
Spreadsheets
Email series
As a fintech nonprofit, usable code is especially helpful for supporting our users (with use of Ruby on Rails, Python, and Plaid preferred).
The SaverLife team will evaluate all final submissions, choosing 1-3 as winners. Winning solutions will be featured on the SaverLife website, with full credit given to the winning team(s), and made publically available for free use and iteration by the community. These solutions, and possibly others, will also be considered for implementation and rollout to the entire SaverLife member base.
July 29 - Registration goes live! SaverLife will provide a Slack workspace for discussion, ideation, and coordination.
August 15 — Participants may submit solution concepts or prototypes anytime up to August 15 for preliminary feedback from SaverLife. Promising concepts may be shared among participants to encourage collaboration. New ideas are still welcome after Aug. 15, but might not receive SaverLife feedback before final submission.
Ongoing — Participants form teams, offline or through the Slack workspace, and work together to develop solutions.
September 20 — Deadline for teams to submit final solutions.
