UST student teams, demonstrating dominant ingenuity, emerged victorious, winning first and third places in the TiE/HCC International Appathon Competition. The event was a joint venture with UST’s McNair Center for Free Enterprise & Entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, the Celts had to outshine teams from elsewhere in the United States and as far away as China and India.

In all, 236 participants formed 16 teams to test themselves in the one-day APPATHON@HCC, which was “essentially a hackathon with a twist.” According to the Appathon instructions, participants would be given a global issue and choose a challenge to address. In addition, experts would be available to mentor and offer feedback to competitors as they developed an application to showcase and integrate solutions.

Teams had a mere six hours to come up with their solutions and present their app ideas to judges. The atmosphere was intense with excitement and alive with the possibility of creation.

Collaborating within their teams, participants brainstormed, planned and prototyped as they went through the following process (remember, they only had 6 hours):

• Identify the issue
• Identify their solution
• Create the solution
• Create an app that uses the solution to help resolve the problem
• Develop a pitch (to sell the app)
• Develop a presentation (to show the solution to judges)
• Repeatedly refine the PowerPoint presentation (by showing it to other groups)
• Repeatedly refine the pitch (by pitching to other groups)
• If selected for the final stage, pitch to the judges while demonstrating the new app)
• Answer questions about the app pertaining to the user interface, functionality, navigation, etc.)

The first-place UST team solved a health-related challenge. The winning team members names are as follows:

• Nhung Le
• Cameron McClure
• Shannon Singleton
• Cody Groff

The third-place Celts delivered on a climate-related issue, and their names follow:

• Alan Bourgeois
• Johnathan Nguyên
• Trey Michell
• Diana Alvarez

Dr. Patrick Woock, The McNair Center for Free Enterprise & Entrepreneurship director, was over-the-moon proud of UST’s showing.

“This was our first international competition,” Woock enthused. “And in our first competition, we took home 1^st and 3^rd. It demonstrated the commitment of UST students and the ability they have to compete on a global level. Watch out, world! Hear us roar!”