A college hackathon organizer here (and former high school hackathon organizer). This is so useful. Dealing with high school/university administration takes up an incredible amount of time. When it came to reimbursements, my university took months to pay back student organizers who paid out of their own pocket to buy last minute items.
This is a great example of a niche banking solution which is far better than any traditional bank can provide. I think we'll see a lot more of this as banking APIs become more available.<p>My company is working on similar problem and solution for youth sports teams and clubs which are also non-profits (formally or informally).
Even as a college hackathon organizer, bank accounts were a huge hassle that almost sank our event. This is incredible.<p>Every student should have the opportunity to go to a hackathon.<p>Infrastructure like this is crucial to increasing access.
Zach is killing it. Me and him had lunch about 3 years ago and to see this grow into something that is empowering hackers is heart warming.<p>High school hackers are one of the most under-appreciated technological innovators.
Fantastic discussion from 8 months ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17417593" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17417593</a><p>Congratulations on your launch!
Overall interesting, except I wonder how they manage to make it legal since basically no jurisdiction anywhere lets anyone under age sign legal contracts. So some adult somewhere is legally responsible, and if they are remote as this suggests, that's just asking for trouble.<p>This doesn't seem to include insurance, liability issues, etc.<p>Get a teacher at any public school in the USA to sponsor you (i.e. a school club), and suddenly the Public School System will handle <i>ALL</i> of this insanity for you, and ran through the schools bookstore(usually).<p>Plus they will eat all of the costs of running it, the insurance problems, the liability issues, etc. If you are under 18 and need this stuff, it's probably easier to just find a teacher to sponsor you and let them deal with all these headaches.<p>I imagine other countries have similar system(s) in place through their schools. It's not like "hackers" suddenly created these problems.
Mostly unrelated question related to banks, does anyone know of banks that expose an api that owners of consumer checking accounts can use? Specifically to do things like read balance and recent transactions. What banks make this easy and have good documentation?
Amazing! Young hackers I know have been so blocked by this problem. I don't think most people remember how suffocating it was be a high school student -- this will be a big change for so many young hackers I know.
Congrats guys, great execution! Surely this can and should be applied to all sorts of other school clubs/events down the road, I know it would have been incredibly helpful for the clubs I was in back then. But I’m always a fan of starting small and niche. :)
Most states have laws on the books that forbid you from calling your business a "bank," "pharmacy," or other restricted business unless it actually is. Simply doing so is enough to trigger regulatory intervention. I'm really surprised that they are advertising their services as the "Hacker Club Bank."<p>Then I finally saw a disclaimer at the bottom of one of the pages: "Hack Club does not directly provide banking services. Banking services provided by Silicon Valley Bank, an FDIC-certified institution."<p>Seems a little sleazy to me, but still, a neat service.