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MAGIC Hackathon reveals 2021 winners

Thursday, April 22, 2021 — 10:13:25 (EDT)

WESTMINSTER, MD - March 30th, 2021 - The Mid-Atlantic Gigabit Innovation Collaboratory (MAGIC) is pleased to announce the winners of their annual Hackathon. This year’s event was virtual, a 5-day app design sprint and business pitch competition. Students collaborated over Discord and presented to a panel of judges via Zoom. The presentations can be viewed on MAGIC’s YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/c/MAGICWestMD

The free event attracted over 50 high school and college students from throughout Maryland and beyond who assembled into 12 teams. The live presentations on Zoom have been viewed over 300 times since Sunday. The judges this year were Christopher College of TCP Venture Capital, Lauren Samuelson of Dreamscape Marketing, Jennifer Bishop of Carroll County Public Library, Sarah Wright of Lantern LLC, and Jennifer Yang of Inflexion LLC.

Here are the 5 winners:

Best Overall: Orbbit James Heller - Carroll Community College Cheyenne Tarr - Carroll Community College

Orbbit is an app that helps you learn skills ‘in your orbit,’ helping users to learn life skills that are no longer taught in school from a marketplace of teachers. Simple skills are demonstrated via short videos called “Bits,” helping students choose which skills to develop and which teachers to support.

Best Tech: StudySmarter Ashleigh Turnbaugh - UMBC Emma Fleck - UMBC Stephen Allen - UMBC

StudySmarter is a web platform where users can communicate with past and current classmates. It provides a chat room that allows students to connect with one another based on their study needs or interests. They can post questions to different groups, make connections for job opportunities, and form groups for easier and more efficient studying.

Best Design: Neuroitch Hailey Gee - Carroll Community College Wren Stanger - Carroll Community College Lauren Conaway - Carroll Community College

Neuroitch is an app that allows you to find activities and products in your community while curing your boredom through suggestions and advertisements of what local businesses have to offer. The app allows small businesses to advertise to users who support these businesses in a virtual environment. It combines the ideas of wholesome wellness activities and connections to small local businesses to create a unique, self-actualizing experience.

Best Idea: InforMobile Allison Dietz - UMBC Alexander Levanduski - UMBC Aidan Atkinson - UMBC Hamza Umar - UMBC Mikee Ibayan - UMBC

InforMobile is a ridesharing safety app for autonomous vehicles that helps riders feel comfortable and confident while riding in an autonomous vehicle with people that they don’t know. This app will allow users to request rides based on their needs, such as cargo space, accessibility, and even style. Riders immediately have access to information about the autonomous vehicle as well as those who would be riding with them, giving them the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the environment as well as the option to cancel their ride.

Best Pitch: Ambrosia Christopher Kasprzak - UMBC Jean Rommel Marquez - UMBC Harishwar Bachu - UMBC Elijah Henderson - UMBC

Ambrosia is a social media app that is centered around food. Users create profiles where they share their likes and cravings, connecting with others with similar tastes. Users can follow each other and share, like, and comment on posts. Through this, Ambrosia creates a community around food, allowing food enthusiasts to share their food and cravings, local providers to promote their own businesses, and users to decide what to eat.

About MAGIC:

MAGIC (the Mid-Atlantic Gigabit Innovation Collaboratory) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization headquartered in Westminster, MD. MAGIC’s mission is to build a tech ecosystem that creates and nurtures talent, entrepreneurship, and tech businesses, elevating the Westminster gigabit community to lead the Mid-Atlantic region. The City of Westminster provides key financial support to MAGIC. For additional information about MAGIC, visit www.magicinc.org/.

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Source: Company press release.