AIB left with egg on face over ‘data-hack’ event

AIB’s latest attempt to appeal to a younger, more tech-savvy generation appears to have backfired somewhat.

The bank was forced into an embarrassingly climb-down over the terms and conditions attached to upcoming “data-hack” event.

The competition, hosted by the bank’s innovation team, is aimed at tapping into the programming skills of third-level students.

Under the original rules, would-be participants were obliged, however, to relinquish all intellectual property rights associated with their entries, assigning them over to AIB.

This caused an outcry on Twitter with several users questioning the bank’s motives.

“New wave of banks using students’ creativity and taking the IP! Trying to be down with kids! Vomit worthy,” one user said.

AIB later removed the condition from the rules, claiming it had been included by mistake.

A spokesman said the terms and conditions had been drafted for a trial Data-hack for AIB employees only and were not meant to be included.

The 12-hour event, which takes place at the bank's Dublin headquarters on November 7th, boasts a prize fund of €8,000.

Last year’s, the bank ran its first “Datathon”, which saw 15 teams from four different colleges compete to build a recommendation engine based on a specific dataset.