Last weekend Drexel University’s College of Computing and Informatics’
Philly Codefest welcomed more than 400 attendees in its fifth year running.
From Feb. 25-26, software and hardware hackers – made up of professionals, educators, and students alike – took over Drexel University’s Behrakis Grand Hall, developing projects that aimed to tackle a wide variety of real-world local and national challenges.
Keynote speaker
Kisha Hortman Hawthorne, a PhD in information studies student at CCI, spoke to participants on Feb. 25 about the two relationships close to her heart: one, between technology and healthcare and the other, between women and technology. Hawthorne has worked in health care 15 years and has spent extensive experience in hospital operations, information services, revenue cycle and project management. She talked about her experiences in the healthcare sector and her experience at the
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) where she currently serves as senior vice president and chief information officer.
Philly Codefest 2017 sponsors included:
JP Morgan Chase,
HomeNet Automotive,
Science Center,
Wawa,
L3 Technologies – Communication Systems East,
The Close School of Entrepreneurship,
Red Spark,
Drexel University College of Medicine,
Accelerate Health,
GitHub,
Microsoft and
Caviar.
A panel of mentors and judges included Drexel faculty and respected members of the Philadelphia tech community. They reviewed all submissions at the end of the 30-hour hacking marathon and awarded prizes to the following teams after seeing demos of each:
Philly Codefest 2017 Student Award – Grand Prize ($2,000)
Team Safe Travels
Parth Bhoiwala, Graydon Briguglio, Satish Boggarapu, Michael DiCioccio (all College of Engineering students)
Description: An app that uses recent crime data and user's location to display if an area in Philadelphia is safe or not.
Philly Codefest 2017 Collaborative Award – Grand Prize ($2,000)
Team SimulatOR
Amos Akinola (College of Engineering), Tyler Roach (Westphal College of Art and Design), Derek Baah, Aruni Jayatilleke, Neilanjan Nandi
Description: VR platform that enables medical trainee proficiency BEFORE 'on the job' errors occur
Inspiration: Current medical training leaves students, residents, and fellows unprepared when they first enter the operating room (OR). They arrive with no skills, with no knowledge of patient safety measures, and are expected to learn both “on-the-job.” This increases the risk of medical errors and harm befalling surgical patients. Around 250,000 annual lives are lost each year to medical error and $17.1 billion healthcare costs. The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a global patient safety challenge: “Safe Surgery Saves Lives” to reduce surgical complications and deaths worldwide. The result was a checklist detailing steps to be taken by the medical team prior to placing the patient under anesthesia, before making an incision, and before the patient leaves the OR. SimulatOR was designed to introduce students to the OR using immersive technology, so that they can help prevent errors and improve patient safety via the WHO checklist. Using a combination of VR and AI, SimulatOR advances medical education by providing trainees familiarity with the OR – and helps keep patients safe.
College of Computing & Informatics Innovation Award ($500)
Team wander
Darya Dragun (College of Engineering), Pranjal Singi, Nima Eskandary (College of Computing & Informatics), Morgan Wallace (College of Computing & Informatics), John Crescenzi
Description: A mobile application to notify when a person has wandered off from a traveling group.
Inspiration: The inspiration for this project comes from the common issue of losing people from a group when traveling together. For example, a group of tourists may have one or two people left behind from the group because of a distraction. The group may not notice that someone is missing until they stop the next time. In order to prevent a wanderer from being lost for too long, the app will notify the leader that a member of the group has deviated from the others. This is ideal for school trips, hiking excursions, and other group trips.
Best Hardware Hack ($500)
Team WATTson
Christopher J. Ozgar (College of Computing & Informatics), Andrew Villa (College of Engineering), Chris Seidl
Description: WATTson is a smart microwave which features smartphone controls, voice command support, and automated cook times.
Inspiration: The Internet of Things revolution has been changing the way we see everyday vehicles, buildings, and physical devices including kitchen appliances. One device that has been left behind in this revolution has been the microwave - which has not changed in over 15 years. Our project utilizes a Raspberry Pi, load cell sensors, as well as a Google Home for voice integration to bring the dated idea of a microwave into the 21st century.
Wawa Challenge – Best User Interface ($500)
Team Simpl. For Facebook
Jen Bondarchuk (College of Computing & Informatics), Nicolena Stiles (College of Engineering), Cameron Scott Graybill (College of Computing & Informatics), Megan Lane
Description: A simple Facebook repackaging that provides a cleaner UI and more intuitive interface.
Inspiration: Growing up with tech-illiterate parents and grandparents can be tough: especially when you’re involved in computer science and tech as heavily as we are. Many social media platforms have grown and developed functionality far beyond what most people use, but none are nearly as guilty of this “bloated design” as Facebook. While Facebook is an amazing website that has an immense power to connect, it can often seem inaccessible or confusing to many users, especially the elderly, and can end up driving away the exact people who would benefit most from its services.
Accelerate Health Tech Award ($600 each)
1) Team DisEasy
Angeline Aguinaldo (School of Biomedical Engineering, Science & Health), Kofi Lewis (College of Computing & Informatics), Lucy Moss (College of Computing & Informatics), Julian Plotnick (College of Computing & Informatics), Joel Parks (College of Computing & Informatics), Flint Rowell (College of Computing & Informatics)
Description: Disease likelihood prediction from clinical laboratory results
Inspiration: The recent advances in digital therapeutics encourages adults to interface with technology (i.e. MayoClinic, WebMD) before seeking physician consultation. More users are seeking alternatives to affordable health care and personal health information which has led to the rise of private organizations that provide lab result data to patients directly, bypassing physician supervision. While it may be more fiscally advantageous to seek private lab testing, it lacks the physician interpretation and global perspective necessary to take action.
2) Team SimulatOR
Amos Akinola (College of Engineering), Tyler Roach (Westphal College of Art and Design), Derek Baah, Aruni Jayatilleke, Neilanjan Nandi
Description: VR platform that enables medical trainee proficiency BEFORE 'on the job' errors occur.
Charles D. Close School of Entrepreneurship - Customer Validation Prize ($750)
Team AirBunny
Chul Ahn, Sufi Noor, Chris Cruz
Description: A platform for AirBnB hosts to improve their SEO.
JPMorgan Chase Challenge - Best Hack for Social Good (Bose headphones)
Team iFamily
Tamanna Chawla, ‘15, Yi Lao, ’15, Tushar Chawla (College of Computing & Informatics), Tarika Chawla, ‘15
Description: An Alexa app to get updates on family members - their location, activity, call and text them plus emergency calling
Inspiration: To help the ones in need and make their lives easier, especially senior citizens and people with disabilities. How many times have you wondered where a family member is and what is he/she up to? Coming in as international students with parents and family in different time zones, we often had a hard time knowing not only if our families were awake to talk — but if they were available to as well. Amazon's Alexa is a very innovative product and quite easy to use. We wanted to use this technology to help connect families who might not all be in the same place.
SkyNet Beta Program by HomeNet Auto (M3D Micro 3D printer)
Team MakeTwitterGreatAgain
Austin Gentry (College of Engineering), Justin Petrecz (College of Computing & Informatics), Vraj Patel (LeBow College of Business)
Description: A visualization tool for the Twitter account of the POTUS
Clouds, Containers, and Code – Oh My! by HomeNet Auto (M3D Micro 3D printer)
Team iFamily
Tamanna Chawla, ‘15, Yi Lao, ’15, Tushar Chawla (College of Computing & Informatics), Tarika Chawla, ‘15
Best Microsoft Hack (Microsoft swag)
Team Intake
Hai Dang, Kevin Carrier, George Keenan, Fnu Frangky, Raul Pulido, Lenny Ramos
Description: A nutrition app.
Inspiration: We wanted to make a nutrition app that allows users to keep track of their nutrition intake. We wanted to make the process as easy as possible. To do this we incorporated image processing and text-to-speech to recognize the foods and display the nutritional value of each food.
L-3 Technologies Impact Award (Quadcopters)
Team Safe Travels
Parth Bhoiwala, Graydon Briguglio, Satish Boggarapu, Michael DiCioccio (all College of Engineering students)