Code Savvy Celebrate 2023 - Recap 1 - Technovation Winning Teams
Saturday, May 20th kicked off with Appapalooza! Bright and early that morning, our Technovation teams from all across the state began their day by virtually pitching their projects live (and livestreamed) for this year's local judges.
After the live pitch sessions, judges were given 30 minutes to update their scores based on the team's performance. Then, scores were locked in order to move into the awards event that afternoon!
After much coordination and collaboration, the Code Savvy Celebrate event kicked off at 2:30pm. There were food trucks, mini golf, bingo games, and an awesome tech playground where our community partners like Smart North, High Tech Kids, U of M researchers, and NCAT showed off the awesome programs they provide to students as well.
Everyone had a great time exploring new tech and making new friends.
At 4:30pm we kicked off our awards presentation - highlighting the accomplishments of Code Savvy participants in our MNCodes Educator program, Code Explorers, and the Byte-Sized Challenge.
We also recognized former Executive Director Jean Weiss for the inaugural Volunteer of the Year award (or decade in Jean's case.)
The presentation then moved to our awards for the winning Technovation teams, as well as the recipients of this year's Spark Scholarships (we will cover the Spark Scholarships winners in a different blog post coming soon!)
Technovation 2023 Winning Teams
Beginner Division
(Teams listed alphabetically)
Team Name: CreateHope Beginners
Team Members: Pearl Tong, Annie Olson
Mentors: Amy Svoboda, Youa Thao
App Name: Save Mpls
Pitch Video:
Project Description: Local Minneapolis citizens need a way to know how to sort waste into the correct place because of the growing amount of litter in Minneapolis. We created an app that uses AI to recognize if waste is trash, compost or recycling.
Team Name: Explorers
Team Members: Susanna Kaspar, Grace Kaspar, Bhavagna Thumbeti, Ruthvika Aadhya Gandi
Mentors: Christopher Kaspar, Charlotte Thomasson, Valerie Jarvis
App Name: BestChoice
Pitch Video:
Project Description: Our app, Best Choice, has been made to help reduce food waste. It stores what your food is and when it will expire. It then will notify you a few days before to warn you that your food is about to expire. In the settings you can also adjust the days before you get a warning. If you can’t finish your food before it expires, you can also donate it to your local food shelf with the help of the donation page. You can cook food with the recipes page. You can also make an online grocery list.
Team Name: Woodbury Legends
Team Members: Madison Gonzalez Sparkman, Sophia Guerrero, Alexandra Rosenberg
Mentors: Ericka Dennis, Pooja Goyal, Laurie Aaronson
App Name: A-HEAD of you
Pitch Video:
Project Description: A-Head of You is a calming app for youth 6-9 years old. It features a mood tracker and four virtual calming spaces with various links to videos, books, inspirational quotes and activities to help kids work through big feelings. Future features include: customizable calming spaces, a chat room, virtual journal, and a kid-friendly GPS for great places to explore and activities in their community.
Junior Division
(teams listed alphabetically)
Team Name: Girls_With_Power
Team Members: Rachel Harrop, Ava Lacher
Mentors: Austen Kruzeski, Loring Harrop, Kevin Stockard
App Name: Undangered
Pitch Video:
Project Description: Our app (which we have named Undangered) is an app designed to educate people about: our planet, the changes it is undergoing, and the effect those changes have on wildlife . . . all while having fun playing a slightly competitive game! This app contains a series of mini-games meant to entertain and educate its players, and we are planning on adding several additional resources including a map of nearby charities and reserves.
Team Name: MME Experienced
Team Members: Ainsley Vaagenes, Celine Sorour, Layan Sorour
Mentors: Michelle Brunik
App Name: Lost it?
Pitch Video:
Project Description: Our project, “Lost It?,” was made and designed for a school setting. This will allow students to locate their items lost in classrooms. This minimizes the time wasted outside the classroom searching for lost items. Teachers can also log items that have been left behind by students from the comfort of their own desks!
Team Name: WMS-SARS
Team Members: Sophie Cui, Akshara Talluri, Saanvi Yemireddy, Revathi Dinesh
Mentors: Kate Indrelie
App Name: MindMap
Pitch Video:
Project Description: MindMap, was made after considering the many problems teens in our community face. A lot of our peers expressed that they knew they had some sort of problem affecting their mental health but they didn’t know what. Which leads us to the purpose of MindMap. We researched so don’t need to. On the home screen there’s a start quiz option. The quiz asks various questions that become more and more specific until a person’s problem is narrowed down to a specific problem. After that, we link various resources about that mental health problem and how to fix it.
Senior Division
(teams listed alphabetically)
Team Name: Mounds View High School
Team Members: Zoke Sackih, Sreya Subramanian
Mentors: Karen Busack, Quincy Sime, Michelle Trueblood
App Name: Gratzi
Pitch Video:
Project Description: Gratzi assists people in practicing gratitude and improving their mental health. Users can write down what they are grateful for, and the app will store and display the list at the end of each month as a reminder of the good things in their lives. Users can train their minds to focus on the positive elements of life by practicing gratitude daily, resulting in elevated levels of dopamine and serotonin. Gratzi features a resource page where users may get further information and help. Gratzi aims to encourage contentment by encouraging people to take small, active steps toward a happy existence.
Team Name: SwiftPixels
Team Members: Jasmine Garry
Mentors: N/A
App Name: HOPE
Pitch Video:
Project Description: HOPE connects volunteers and refugees in need. Through HOPE, refugees can to schedule food, clothing, and toy pick-ups or deliveries. Additionally, HOPE provides translation services and connects volunteers who know the necessary languages to help navigate them to the right places. Likewise, through HOPE, volunteers can host events. Finally, HOPE offers medical resources for amputees, scheduling medical appointments, or therapy counseling. Having all of these resources in one app will allow for a seamless transition for all refugees.
Team Name: Team Velocity
Team Members: Laasya Aki, Adriana Tacheny, Lakshika Nanda Kumar Reddy
Mentors: Kayla Dostal
App Name: AgrID
Pitch Video:
Project Description: AgrID is an app that is designed to help farmers with their agricultural process relating to crop health. With features like a plant disease identifier, the climate friendly solutions to these diseases, a weather page, and a community page, AgrID puts innovative technology in the hands of farmers.
All of the 2023 Technovation Girls Minnesota teams did amazing work this season, and we are super proud of the creativity and ingenuity they displayed in their projects! We were also incredibly lucky to have had an amazing team of 39 judges from across MN industries who worked diligently to go through all of the teams submissions.
While these nine teams came out on top, every single team is worthy of recognition. You can check out all of their awesome projects on the full 2023 project submissions list.
None of our Code Savvy programs or events would be possible without the support from our sponsors. It is because of their belief in our mission that we are able to positively impact the lives of so many people across Minnesota.
A very special shout-out to De La Salle High School in Minneapolis for hosting our event and helping to make the day extra special for all of the attendees.
Thank you, sponsors, for being our partners in making sure MN Tech is inclusive and representative of our residents and communities.
In our next blog post, we'll highlight the amazing students from all of our Code Savvy programs that took home our 2023 Spark Scholarships. Stay Tuned! :)