World Wide Technology Awards $34,500 To Hackathon Participants

ST. LOUIS, MO — World Wide Technology, one of St. Louis’ largest privately-owned companies and biggest employers, announced that Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience was awarded the top prize of $10,000 at its third annual Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Student Forum Hackathon. Villa Duchesne received second place and a cash prize of $5,000; Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School received third place and a cash prize of $2,500; and the remaining schools received $1,000 each for participating.

The event was held in February at World Wide Technology’s new global headquarters.

“WWT was thrilled to host the highest-attended STEM Student Forum Hackathon to-date,” said Joe Koenig, the company's president. “We believe this year’s high attendance is a result of the increasing discussions around the importance of STEM education in America – especially for young women and girls. We will build on this momentum and continue to push our goals of educating high school students on the importance of STEM, improving academic proficiency, providing competitive advantages for college enrollment and increasing awareness around disciplines in STEM.”

Since the 2015 and 2016 hackathon events, school attendance has grown from five St. Louis-area high schools to 20. This year, approximately 200 students participated in the hackathon from the following schools:

• Barat Academy
• Brentwood High School
• Christian Brothers College High School
• Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience
• Fort Zumwalt South High School
• Fort Zumwalt West High School
• Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls
• Hazelwood East
• Jennings Senior High School
• Metro Academic and Classical High School
• Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School
• Nerinx Hall High School
• Parkway Spark!
• South Technical High School
• St. Joseph’s Academy
• St. Louis University High School
• Trinity Catholic High School
• Ursuline Academy
• Windsor High School
• Villa Duchesne

“We are so proud of our students’ hard work during this hackathon,” said Frederick Steele, principal at Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience. “Our team chose to look outside of our own school to solve a problem our local community was having. This is consistent with our mission as a school. Our team of students learned a lot about teamwork, professionalism and STEM during this program and we hope to participate in next year’s event.”

The participating students were tasked with developing a solution that uses technology to solve a problem in their school or community. WWT provided each team with professional mentors who volunteered to help the students refine their ideas and connect them with WWT resources to complete their projects. Teams were judged on how well they articulated their solution or product; the overall creativity of their project and core values; and how well the team displayed humility, teamwork, collaboration and attitude.

The problem that Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience’s winning team chose to solve was related to educational equity. The team discussed how many St. Louis Public Schools eighth graders were unaware of their high school options. To solve this problem, the team built and presented a web application called High School in Hand that showcased a personalized survey that could match eighth graders with potential high schools based on their interests and goals. The goal was to make school choice programs more student-focused and driven. Their solution included marketing and branding considerations as well as integrations with existing SLPS websites.

WWT’s annual program consists of two sessions: a STEM Student Forum – a half-day company overview held at WWT’s campus and facilitated by internal leaders from all areas of the business – and a hackathon event.

WWT says it is committed to building and nurturing the future of the STEM workforce by investing in STEM-focused education, internships and other work-based learning opportunities. WWT partners with several community organizations that strive to prepare students and young adults to be “future ready” by exposing them to STEM-related fields, providing basic STEM training and ultimately placing students and young adults into targeted internships and STEM jobs. These community organizations include:

• Boys Hope/Girls Hope
• Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls
• National Academy Foundation
• NPower
• KIPP St. Louis
• WWT’s STEM Student Forum and Hackathon

Photo: First place Hackaton winners from the Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience. (Courtesy of World Wide Technology)