A team of four students comprising of three from JKUAT’s School of Computing and Information Technology – Keith Martin, Alexander Muithi, Kennedy Wangari, and one from Catholic University of East and Central Africa – Teresia Muiruri have clinched the top honors in the Data Science Track at the just concluded 2019 Oracle Student Hackathon.
The hackathon challenge held, March 20-21, 2019, was organized by Oracle Academy in partnership with iLab Africa and Moringa School. The challenge saw over 100 students from different institutions and technical backgrounds participate in four thematic areas: Internet of Things, Application Programming, Data Science and Information Security.
For two days, the students were expected to develop innovative software and hardware solutions to solve real-world problems. The winning team used Twitter’s Application Programming Interface (API) to analyze whether Kenyans were in support of the government’s big four development agenda.
Keith, a 3rd-year Information Technology student acknowledged that the hackathon provided the students with a platform for perfecting their self-expression and creativity through technology and helped him advance his technological knowledge. “Students with different technical backgrounds formed teams around a problem or idea and collaboratively developed a unique solution,” elucidated Keith.
Kennedy also a 3rd-year Information Technology student attested that the hackathon helped him to build his collaboration and teamwork skills. Despite coming from different backgrounds and institutions, he was gratified that they not only managed to complete their challenge but emerged winners in the data science track.
Going forward, the team, using Twitter’s API, wants to go into advanced twitter analytics and see how the different pillars of the big four agenda are perceived in various regions of the country.
Oracle Academy Sub Saharan Manager, Ms. Sefumi Fadahunsi encouraged students to actively participate in the Oracle Academy initiatives to achieve global visibility through collective efforts citing JKUAT as a good example that is taking great strides in this.
School of Computing and Information Technology Lecturer, Mr. Philip Oyier said such challenges were vital in enhancing students’ practical skills and confidence.
“The hackathon provided the students with an opportunity to apply the concepts and theories learned in class to solve real-life problems,” said Mr. Oyier.
The winners of the four thematic areas received free Oracle Cloud Credits, guaranteed internship placements and will be the pioneer mentee class of the Oracle Student Academy in Kenya.
This article was first published on the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology official site.
