COBOL dev won .Net hackathon with help from AI – and their CIO loves it
- ID
- 24532
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 15 Sep 2026, 9:47 AM
- Fetched
- 15 Sep 2026, 1:09 PM
- Provider
- The Register
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/09/15/cobol-dev-won-net-hackathon-with-help-from-ai-and-their-cio-loves-it/5296438
- Source URL
- https://www.theregister.com/headlines.atom
Summary
- Score
- 6.5
- Created
- 15 Sep 2026, 1:09 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersai_agent_userssaas_founders
What happened
ATO CIO Mark Sawade is letting administrative staff use Microsoft Copilot for everyday tasks to build AI literacy, explicitly not expecting ROI but rather 'return on employee.' A COBOL developer with no C# or .Net experience won an internal hackathon using GitHub Copilot, which Sawade cited as proof that AI lets developers who understand core concepts work in unfamiliar tech stacks. Gen AI and agentic AI are deliberately kept away from core processes like fraud detection.
Why it matters
The COBOL-to-.Net hackathon result is a concrete data point for teams managing legacy system migrations: a developer who understands business logic can now productively contribute to a modern stack with AI assistance, even with zero prior experience in the target framework. For founders and teams in Malaysia with large legacy COBOL/mainframe estates (banks, government), this suggests AI-assisted cross-stack development is viable for internal hackathons and pilot migrations, not just a vendor pitch.
Discussion angle
Is 'return on employee' a useful KPI for Malaysian orgs adopting Copilot, or is it a way to justify spend without measurable outcomes? Compare Sawade's deliberate exclusion of gen AI from core fraud processes versus the rush to ship agents elsewhere.