Archmere Students Win Verizon App Design Contest

An App imagined by a team of students from Archmere Academy won “Best in State” in the Verizon Innovative App Challenge. Led by Archmere Computer Science teacher Jared Campbell, this team of students, comprised of Christian Kraft '15, Gregory McCord '16, Joseph Spall '16, Andrew Hurst '15 and Nicholas McIntyre '15, developed the concept for a mobile application they call “coNextGen”, which helps individuals locate family members and friends in the event of a natural disaster.

This past November, Jared Campbell presented the Verizon Innovative App Challenge to the students, all of whom had excelled in Computer Science courses at Archmere, such as a class taught by Campbell called “App Development,” and encouraged them to enter. The goal of the Challenge is to increase student interest and knowledge in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects and mobile technology. A stipulation of the challenge is that students must develop “an original mobile app concept that incorporates STEM and addresses a need or problem in their school or community.”

 

“When we heard about the challenge in November, it was right around the time that Typhoon Haiyan had hit the Philippines,” said Christian Kraft ’15. “A lot of their telecommunications went down and it got us thinking about how there is a need to locate people after a disaster like that,” added Joe Spall ’16.

 

“In the case that a natural disaster hits our community, our app, coNextGen, will allow the families of victims and organizations such as the Red Cross to acquire the names and whereabouts of those lost or deceased in locations that have lost all forms of power and telecommunication,” the students write in their Verizon Innovative App Challenge essay. The app implements an SQL database and a phone-to-phone Bluetooth low energy connection. “We learned a lot of the coding and development for this app in our Computer Science classes at Archmere,” says Andrew Hurst ’15.

 

The team is now eligible for Best in Region Honors, which would earn them a $5,000 grant for the school and virtual coding training from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab development experts. If they win, they would also advance to the national-level competition, which brings a $15,000 grant and tablet computers.

 

Winning the national-level competition would mean seeing coNextGen come to life. “We are not looking to make a profit and we won’t sell this on any app store,” says Christian Kraft ’15. “We are only focused on helping those in need in the case of a disaster. Our goal is to give this app to large phone providers for them to implement the idea into their phone’s software. If all phones had this feature built in, anyone could take advantage of this simple, helpful resource.”

 

Verizon plans to release the results of the regional-level competition this February.