Student teams from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa won the top three places in the 2023 Hawaiʻi Annual Code Challenge (HACC), winning a combined $7,000. Their solutions aim to modernize community services, including to help rebuild Lahaina following the devastating August wildfires.
HACC solicits challenges from state departments and community groups, and asks student, amateur and professional coders to develop technology applications to help solve specific problems during a four-week period. The hackathon culminated in presentations at UH West Oʻahu on November 18.
The winner of first place and a $4,000 prize was the team named VENGEN for its design of a web portal to facilitate civic engagement around rebuilding Lahaina, including surveys, forums, sharing design concepts with visual and data models for economic, environmental analysis. Ethan Chee is the captain and members include Timothy Huo, Michelle Leano, Eda Cadiena and Marissa Halim, who are either UH Mānoa Department of Information and Computer Sciences students or alumni.
“Winning this competition has been a significant achievement for our team,” said Chee, who is a UH Mānoa master of science in electrical engineering student and bachelor of science in computer engineering graduate. “It represents a culmination of our dedication and passion to propose an innovative solution for the people of Lahaina. And beyond the award itself, winning this competition gives us the opportunity to collaborate with Maui to further develop the application and be deployed for public use.”
DarkMode, led by team captain Micah Tilton and members Kaylee Agorilla and Malisa Lo from the Department of Information and Computer Sciences, worked on a challenge from UH’s Information Technology Services to create an application that provides a conversational UX (a user experience that leverages technology to mimic human conversation) powered by AI, that supports a flexible and intuitive conversational search function to identify and retrieve relevant “Ask Us” articles and information. DarkMode placed second and won a $2,000 prize.
Frosty Ice captured third place and a $1,000 prize. The team is led by captain Giorgio Tran and members Ana Araujo, James Grande, Rob Godfrey and Shun Saito from the Department of Information and Computer Sciences. Frosty Ice was tasked with determining the quantity of marine debris washing ashore in Hawaiʻi, efficient removal operations and improving disposal options so they are more environmentally friendly. A user-friendly platform will increase accuracy and efficiency of the process of collecting and dealing with marine debris.
“Students from ICS have participated in the Hawaiʻi Code Challenge since its inception,” said Professor Philip Johnson. “It is gratifying to see multiple generations of ICS students experiencing the HACC and developing ways to address important problems facing Hawaiʻi.”
There were two other divisions in the hackathon: low/no code and high/middle school. The 2023 HACC was sponsored by the State of Hawaiʻi Office of Enterprise Technology Services in partnership with UH.
HACC addresses the state’s most challenging issues
HACC, now in its eighth year, was created to encourage engagement between Hawaiʻi residents and the local technology community to modernize state functions and services for a more effective, efficient and open government. Another objective of the hackathon is to strengthen the pipeline of the IT workforce and expand the tech industry in Hawaiʻi.
Hawaiʻi Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, a UH Mānoa alumna, told the teams gathered during the presentation and judging event that their efforts can make people’s lives better.
“In this competition, you have the opportunity to help address some of the state’s most challenging issues such as homelessness and housing,” Luke said. “Using coding, you are asked to identify a problem, find ways to help address the issue and make it easier for the end user to utilize the application. What you folks do can improve people’s lives, and being here speaks volumes about who you are as individuals.”
