Penn students are finding ways improve their lives, one mobile application at a time.
Today, the School of Arts and Sciences Student Technology Advisory Board — in collaboration with PennApps Labs — kicks off a three-day contest that allows students to submit ideas of their ideal mobile applications.
The successful applicant will be awarded $100, and their idea will be passed off to PennApps Labs, which will develop it with the aid of a mentor and grants from SAS computing.
Participation is open to anyone, and no programming abilities are required
Undergraduate students will be able to pitch their ideas on the STAB website. However, the ideas for the application are limited to those that would benefit the greater Penn community. The applications will be hosted by the University.
The pitching process itself is simple. Michael Chan, a Wharton and College junior and the head of STAB, said that the “entire pitching process will last only about two minutes and a few sentences, so we hope a lot of students will do it.”
Chan added that he “wants to see apps for Penn students by Penn students.” He knows how imaginative the Penn campus is and wants to see ideas that “have measurable impact come out of the contest.”
A lot of Penn students are excited about making new applications to remedy the small problems in their lives.
Jasmine Lee, an Engineering freshman, thought that a Penn application that allowed students to order food from on-campus locations would be helpful.
Similarly, Engineering freshman Frederick Ding thought that an application that helped confused freshmen navigate through the Quad would be useful to the Penn community. Seth Koren, a College freshman, said “someone definitely needs to make an app that alerts you when a course you want opens up because checking every 10 minutes is annoying.” Jon Moller, another College freshman, proposed the idea of “integrating” the Penn Book Bazaar catalogue with a mobile application in order to make it easier to find books at the bookstore.
STAB also has ideas for new Penn applications, which they hope to submit to the contest.
These ideas include an “integrated library application” that would allow Van Pelt library users to search up books and easily navigate toward them, Chan said.
Other ideas include applications that help students schedule tutor sessions at places such as Kelly Writers House on their smart phone and an application that integrates Google Maps with specific Penn places.
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