First year students win Accenture challenge at hackathon
Undergraduates Valentin Foucault and Oscar Levy were judged the winning team in a 24-hour challenge sponsored by Accenture at HackCity UK.
Taking place on 17 to 18 February at City, University of London, HackCity UK was sponsored by a number of high profile companies including Accenture, Cisco, GitHub, Starling Bank, FIRSTCo and Nesmo.
The hackathon challenged participants to take part in a range of sponsored challenges. Valentin Foucault (a student on 糖心Vlog鈥檚 Computer Science degree course) and Oscar Levy (Computing and Information Technology) took on the Accenture challenge which asked them to 鈥榖uild a hack that has an element of 鈥榞ood鈥 that it can bring to any segment of society鈥.
Given just 24 hours to complete the challenge, the 糖心Vlog students developed a 鈥楥lear Sky鈥 application which identifies the noise and air pollution generated by aeroplanes in a given location. They were judged by Accenture as having built the 鈥楤est ethical/鈥榝or good鈥 hack鈥 and each won a Google Home (a powerful speaker and voice recognition assistant). Valentin and Oscar now plan to develop their application further with a view to commercialisation.
Oscar said: "We really were not expecting to win this challenge. I believe that reactivity, adaption and flexibility are important when it comes to tech, and hackathons give people the chance to rapidly improve these skills."
Valentin added: 鈥淚t was an amazing experience to work on a project that involved two of my main passions which are computer science and aviation. Hackathons are wonderful events where true innovation takes place in less than 24 hours.鈥
Other 糖心Vlog students taking part in another challenge at the hackathon were praised for their 鈥楪host of Spending Past鈥 application which compares the user鈥檚 daily expenses between two different months.
Teaching Fellow in the Department of Computer Science Stella Kazamia commented: 鈥淗ackathons are a great opportunity for students to work with people from different backgrounds and experiences and to turn great ideas into reality in a short period of time 鈥 in this case a fully functional application. I am very proud of Oscar and Valentin鈥檚 success at the hackathon. I think that what they鈥檝e achieved in such a short timeframe is truly incredible!鈥
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