Quinnipiac University Students Place 1st At Hackathon Competition

From Quinnipiac University: A team which included four Quinnipiac University students recently placed first at the Connecticut Technology Council’s hackathon competition.

Quinnipiac students Tyler Dresselhouse of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, Matt Fishman, of Manalapan, New Jersey, Brandon Loehle of Farmington and Alexander Thimineur of Orange joined UConn’s Anthony Dell’Agli to win the competition and earn $5,000 for first prize.

Thimineur, a senior computer science major, said he has already put his portion of the money to good use. “I bought all of the parts for a PC and built it, which is something I've been wanting to do for forever,” he said. “It's not every day that you win $1,000.”

The competition was held Dec. 3 at the Yale School of Management in New Haven. The CTC hosted the top 50 collegiate computer programming students from local colleges and universities for a team competition.

Each team was required to use a public Application Programming Interface (API) to make a piece of useful software. The Quinnipiac group made a mobile app for Android and IOS that allowed users to search movies and receive easy-to-read review scales.

The hackathon was part of CTC’s ongoing Connecticut Skills Challenge Program, made possible through funding provided by CTNext. This was the second hackathon for the CT Skills Challenge in the past eight months, attracting talented programmers from across the state.

Through participation in the hackathon students from universities and colleges are tested on their skills. They also are included in an online directory where tech companies search for local talent and are invited to CTC hosted job fairs.

“The purpose of the CT Skills Challenge program is two-fold,” said Katie Magboo, CTC Manager of Talent and Workforce program. “On the one hand, we want to showcase the premier talent being cultivated at the participating colleges and universities and on the other we want to highlight the exciting tech companies growing and thriving right here in Connecticut.”

The hackathon included teams from 15 colleges and universities throughout Connecticut. The CTC held qualifying competitions on several campuses, including Quinnipiac’s, and the top 50 students were invited to the hackathon.

“It was intimidating to say the least,” said Fishman, a senior software engineering major. “I have never stood up and presented in front of that many strangers before.”

Once the qualifying competitions finished on Nov. 7, the top 50 coders were notified and invited to the hackathon. Students competed in teams of five for cash prizes and the chance to showcase their skills in front of representatives from nine Connecticut tech companies, who served as judges.

“It was really surreal,” said Loehle, a freshman software engineering major. “Business men and women would surround our tables and look at what we were coding with extreme curiosity, which, to me, was very cool. Also, when they were judging us, they had a particular interest in the inner-workings of our app, which usually clients do not have. That was definitely neat. It was fun to talk code with people who understood it.”

Image Courtesy Of Quinnipiac University