PHILADELPHIA (February 26, 2014)—Last weekend, Drexel University’s College of Computing & Informatics hosted its second Philly Codefest, a two-day coding competition to transform data into real-world solutions.
Over 165 software developers and designers, professionals, educators, students and entrepreneurs attended the event, which took place in Drexel University’s URBN Center on February 21-23.
Philly Codefest was also an official CodeAcross 2014 site. CodeAcross is a weekend of coding events taking place in cities around the world (February 21-23, 2014). Coinciding with International Open Data Day, the goal of CodeAcross is to activate the Code for America network and inspire residents everywhere to get actively involved in their community.
Codefest participants formed teams—both before and during the event—with the goal of coming up with creative ways to tackle a variety of national and local challenges. During the almost 30 hours of marathon coding, 27 teams worked to produce new software and hardware prototypes and tools related to health, hospital and patient care; government and civic solutions; media and digital arts; data science and visualization; and cybersecurity.
Teams produced new applications using anonymized data in domain areas such as community health, transportation, energy, agriculture, art, and information technology, among others.
A kick-off ceremony was held on Saturday, February 22 featuring keynote speakers Steve Welch (co-founder and managing partner, DreamIt Ventures), Michael Hagan (chief rockstar/COO, LevelUp), and Mark Headd (chief data officer, City of Philadelphia).
Philly Codefest 2014 sponsors included: Independence Blue Cross, Drexel University Charles D. Close School of Entrepreneurship, Jacquette Consulting, NextFab Studio, 50onRed, Drexel University Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, AWeber, Azavea, InSource, Point.io, IEEE, University City Science Center, and WebLinc.
A panel of judges that included both venture capitalists and respected members of Philadelphia’s tech community reviewed the projects.
Seven teams took home awards from Philly Codefest, which were presented after demos on Sunday, February 23:
Grand Prize (Overall Best Project) - $5,000
Team: City of Brotherly Love
Team Members: Jack Giammattei, Charlie Giammattei
Project: Monitor.me
Project Description: Monitor.me is a cellphone case designed to measure a user’s heartbeat while on the phone. The accompanying app allows users to view their pulse, compare themselves against national averages, and monitor themselves for potential heart problems.
Runner-Up - $1,500
Team: The Mighty Divs
Team Members: Chris Hoopes, Dave Ferello, Pak Lee
Project: Flying V
Project Description: Flying V is a high-level Leap Motion powered data visualization tool that enables users to recognize patterns in datasets such as Apache server logs. Initially developed as a cybersecurity tool, Flying V can be adapted to suit any batch of data for various verticals and industries.
Dean of the College of Computing & Informatics Innovation Award - $750
Team: Liquid Picnic
Team Members: Scott Lerner, Reid Welliver, Corey Shoenfeld, Isikcan Yilmaz, Burim Derveni
Project: MotionExplorer
Project Description: An intuitive 3-dimensional gesture controlled smart wheelchair concept.
NextFab Studio Award - (includes 6-month membership to NextFab Studio for up to 4 team members)
Team: Liquid Picnic
Team Members: Scott Lerner, Reid Welliver, Corey Shoenfeld, Isikcan Yilmaz, Burim Derveni
Project: MotionExplorer
Project Description: An intuitive 3-dimensional gesture controlled smart wheelchair concept.
Majority Student Team - $750
Team: BUI
Team Members: Vu Bui, Thach Nguyen, Duc Nguyen
Project: EZ Parking System
Project Description: EZ Parking System is a cloud-connected kiosk network that gathers real time on-street parking data. The system provides a platform for city planners to monitor current parking and traffic conditions in Philadelphia. Developers will now have direct access to the database to build useful applications such as apps that can navigate users to available parking spaces and pay using their NFC-enabled devices.
Women in Technology Award - $750
Team: Empower to Improve
Team Members: Trey Morris, Bill Powell, Maia Kowalchuk
Project: Empower to Improve
Project Description: Our program is meant to transition enrollees from averting regular visits with a healthcare provider until more severe and costly ailments present themselves, to attending group visits in a comfortable atmosphere with other patients with similar healthcare issues and treatment plans. Patients will input very basic information into a database accessible to healthcare providers who will then schedule group visits based on provided information, enabling providers to increase the volume of patients they see in a more efficient manner and will create a sense of community amongst group members encouraging adherence to their prescribed treatment plans.
Independence Blue Cross Healthcare Innovation Award - $500
Team: Level 3 Web Designs
Team Members: Matt Barnett, Jason Walsh, Brandon Him, Qingfeng Yang, Ilya Rogov
Project: Censeo: Visualizing Healthcare
Project Description: Censeo is a visual data mapping service with an elegant, simple, and friendly user interface. Using this software, public health officials and doctors alike are able to quickly spot relationships between specialty doctor locations and areas above or below the national average life expectancy to see if there may be a correlation between them.
CodeAcross/City of Philadelphia – Beyond Transparency - $500
Team: Threaded Thinking
Team Members: Alex Roscoe, David Tozour
Project: Threaded Thinking
Project Description: The properties from the Philadelphia sheriff sale are built into a dataset and combined with the Philadelphia BRT dataset and are visualized via Google Maps.
Best Hardware Hack - $500
Team: City of Brotherly Love
Team Members: Jack Giammattei, Charlie Giammattei
Project: Monitor.me
Project Description: Monitor.me is a cellphone case designed to measure a user’s heartbeat while on the phone. The accompanying app allows users to view their pulse, compare themselves against national averages, and monitor themselves for potential heart problems.
Best Mobile Project - $500
Team: BUI
Team Members: Vu Bui, Thach Nguyen, Duc Nguyen
Project: EZ Parking System
Project Description: EZ Parking System is a cloud-connected kiosk network that gathers real time on-street parking data. The system provides a platform for city planners to monitor current parking and traffic conditions in Philadelphia. Developers will now have direct access to the database to build useful applications such as apps that can navigate users to available parking spaces and pay using their NFC-enabled devices.
Venture Capitalist’s Choice - $500
Team: The Mighty Divs
Team Members: Chris Hoopes, Dave Ferello, Pak Lee
Project: Flying V
Project Description: Flying V is a high-level Leap Motion powered data visualization tool that enables users to recognize patterns in datasets such as Apache server logs. Initially developed as a cybersecurity tool, Flying V can be adapted to suit any batch of data for various verticals and industries.
For more information about the Philly Codefest, please visit http://www.phillycodefest.com.
###