The University of the Virgin Islands announces the winners of the 6th annual Hackathon, which was held on both the St. Thomas and Albert A. Sheen Campuses on October 18 and 19, and October 25 and 26, respectively.
The marathon app concept development competition was keenly contested by 12 students, four on the St. Thomas Campus and eight on the Albert A. Sheen Campus. Addressing the themed hack – “Power,” the five student-teams identified and created solution concepts to fix frustrations related to power in the Virgin Islands community.
Consistent with the tradition, on the final day, the students presented their app concepts before a panel of judges who determined the Best Hack, Most Creative Hack and Most Impactful Hack.
The Best Hack on the Albert A. Sheen Campus was designed by a four-person team including Kedisha Charles, Javier Galiber, Renell Agard and Kelvina Salters. The team dubbed “Power Bucs”, through their app –“UPower,” devises a way to monitor the amount of electricity one consumes. In addition to self-monitoring, it allows one to remotely turn-off the power to home appliances or set them on a timer.
Salters stated that her team was inspired to solve a problem that “came close to home” for the average Virgin Islander, as it relates to power. “After brainstorming, we agreed that the inconsistencies of power supply and the inflated costs needed a solution-based approach,” she said. “In light of this, our brainchild UPower was born. The app provides a user-friendly roadmap on how the average consumer can monitor and control power usage per kilowatts and affords them the privilege of negotiating discrepancies associated with their bills.”
More information is available in a news release on the Media Section of the UVI website – http://www.uvi.edu/ - and from this direct link.