KU EECS Students Win Kansas City Federal Reserve’s First Code-A-Thon Competition


Jayhawks were large and in charge at the first ever Code-A-Thon hosted by the Kansas City Federal Reserve. There were 15 students – the most of any of the four area participating universities – representing KU’s technology-focused degrees at the competition. In addition, one of KU’s teams took home first-place honors. Participating EECS students were from the Lawrence and Edwards Campus and are pursuing degrees in information technology, computer science or interdisciplinary computing.

All students were challenged with developing a cause-related app within 48 hours. The winning team created ElectionIQ. The prototype app targets unregistered voters who are typically in the 18 to 24-age range. The app helped users register to vote, find their polling location and preview an election ballot with national, state and local candidates and issues.

“It was a great real-word experience for the students to ‘virtually’ work in teams, create something from scratch, learn new software and problem solve under a tight deadline,” said Annette Tetmeyer, associate professor of practice and academic program director for KU’s information technology program in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

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