Huskies Misky Abshir, Niyongere Florentin and Niyonzima Fernand took first place in the National Society of Black Engineers Hackathon this March with teammates Azma Ali and Anisa Tahlil, from the University of Toronto, and Ledornubari Nwilene, from Drexel University. Pictured with mentors Quest Moffat and Vinchessica Gray.
The NSBE Hackathon is powered by Google and sponsored by JP Morgan, American Express, Goldman Sachs and Two Sigma. The first place team included St. Cloud State students Misky Abshir, Niyongere Florentin, and Niyonzima Fernand, alongside teammates Azma Ali and Anisa Tahlil, from the University of Toronto, and Ledornubari Nwilene, from Drexel University. It was part of NSBE’s annual convention March 27-31 in Detroit.
St. Cloud State students were among roughly 60 students selected for the opportunity to compete from more than 1,500 students, and formed one of 12 teams that competed.
The hackathon gives students 16 hours to create and program an idea, which is judged on its social good, creativity and presentation — as well as its technical execution, input validation and project scope.
The team decided to address fundraising challenges for small non-profits, which often have difficulty surviving due to small donation networks. They decided to leverage the power of small donations, building upon existing technologies, creating a platform that would round up banking card transactions, donating the extra to charity. For instance, a consumer can choose to use their card to purchase an item that costs $1.95, and the extra $0.05 will be donated to a charity of their choice.
They further improved their platform, giving consumers control of how many cents they round up per transaction, and allowing them to set a monthly limit to help prevent overdrafts. Both features helped distinguish their platform from other existing technologies.
The teammates plan to launch the platform later this year after making further improvements. The team was assisted by mentors Quest Moffat, from Project United Knowledge, and Vinchessica Gray, from J.P. Morgan Chase.
