MEMPHIS, Tenn — The team of Kennedy Jefferson, Alan Ji, Naomi Leverette, and Kennedi Stewart were named the winners of the 9th annual Hackathon this weekend at the FedEx Institute of Technology in Memphis.
FedEx teamed up with nonprofit CodeCrew this weekend as part of the effort to empower children and adults in technology.
The Hackathon is a popular app building competition. More than 100 people from across the country gathered for the event in Memphis. This year, participating students built mobile apps geared toward the theme of artificial intelligence (AI).
"This year, we are focusing on the transformative potential of artificial intelligence, with the aim to inspire and empower diverse students to understand, influence, and harness AI to create impactful solutions that could change their communities and the world,” said Meka Egwuekwe, CodeCrew Executive Director.
Jefferson (grade 7), Ji (grade 11), Leverette (grade 7), and Stewart (grade 12) created an application that simplifies and promotes recycling by using AI to visually identify waste materials and then recommend the most eco-friendly way to recycle each item.
Each member of the first-place team received an Apple iPad Pro, while each second-place team member received a Meta Quest 2 virtual reality headset, and each third-place winner received a $100 Apple Store gift card.
Jean Francois Mahoro is the director of K-12 programming for CodeCrew, and said it’s a great event for kids to learn valuable skills.
“I can promise you when they leave here, they are gonna say I want to do more of this,” he said. “That brings a smile to me. That brings a smile to the entire team because now we're realizing kids just need an opportunity. They get to see themselves doing it. That's all we want to do is to encourage them to be the best version of themselves.”
Winners have the chance to submit their creations to the Congressional App Challenge. Since 2019, CodeCrew Hackathon teams have won first place three out of four years in Tennessee's Congressional App Challenge for District 9.
Since 2005, CodeCrew has taught more than 2,000 students how to code through their summer camps. Learn more about CodeCrew at https://www.code-crew.org/.