South Raleigh News

Today, Governor Roy Cooper announced the three winning teams from North Carolina high schools for the Fifth Annual Ready, Set, App! Competition. Eight student teams from across the state attended the final event to pitch their original apps to a panel of business and tech-industry professionals along with a live audience of family members, teachers, and peers.

“Competitions like Ready, Set, App! provide high school students with great opportunities to apply the skills they are learning in school to solve real-world problems,” said Governor Roy Cooper. “These students are North Carolina’s future leaders and innovators, and I am proud of their creativity and teamwork.”

The following teams were selected as the winners for this year’s competition:

First place was Team ServeIT from the Early College of Guilford in Guilford County, who created an app that enables students to simultaneously earn volunteer hours and driving experience by delivering donations to local non-profit organizations. Team members include Siddarth Giridharan, Olivia Mosca, and Madeline Chandler.

Second place was Team Autism Assist from Cox Mill High School in Cabarrus County, whose app utilizes AI to help users on the autism spectrum recognize social cues and access resources about Autism Spectrum Disorder. Team members include Sarthak Gupta, Aditya Mehta, and Gaurika Gupta.

Third place was Team SkinSense from Enloe High School in Wake County who created a melanoma detection app that uses a machine learning model to determine the likelihood that an uploaded image is melanoma, then encourages users to seek professional medical care. Team members include Saiakhil Chilaka, Neil Patel, Rosalind Eccles, Vedant Iyer, and Kunwar Kalra.

This year’s Ready, Set, App! set participation records with 95 teams from across 26 counties registering to participate, engaging more than 370 students. Teams are comprised of three to five students along with an advisor. Fifty-six semi-finalist teams submitted fully functioning original apps.

The competition is hosted by the North Carolina Business Committee for Education (NCBCE), a business-led education non-profit within the Governor’s Office and sponsored by Lenovo. The contest challenges student teams to design and develop an android mobile application to solve a problem in their school or community. Participating student teams developed 56 original apps for the competition this year. Lenovo professionals, educators, business leaders, and government officials reviewed the 56 apps in an initial round of judging to narrow the field to eight finalists. The eight finalist teams then pitched their apps on a live stage at Lenovo Headquarters for the chance to win brand new Lenovo gear.

“Lenovo recognizes the value of young diverse talent and the importance of work-based learning experiences,” said Libby Richards, Community Engagement Manager at Lenovo. “We continue to be impressed with the quality and creativity of the Ready, Set, App! finalists and I am excited to see what the future holds for these bright students.”

In addition to providing a presentation on their app projects during pitches before judges could finalize results based upon such topics like design features accessibility group dynamics future plans foster success create equitable competition provided various resources including project workbooks virtual workshops notably dedicated intern act peer mentor interns fellow high school students brought exceptional skills coding app design project management interns meet regularly provide advice guidance support ensure success throughout journey receive professional development training enhance communication leadership skills This year’s intern team co-led Pranathi Gorty Wilson Preparatory Academy Siddharth Maruvada North Carolina School Science Math New additions intern team included Arianna Lee North Carolina School Science Math Hana Howard Ashe County High School Kishan Rajeev Jagadeesh Apex Friendship High School Wisdom Walker Harper Middle College

Ready Set App open all North Carolina high school students held again next school year kickoff planned fall 2024 Intern applications open September team registration open shortly after For more information about Ready Set App competition please visit www.ncbce.org/ready-set-app

About NCBCE

NCBCE is an education workforce non-profit housed Office Governor membership comprised business leaders across North Carolina Since 1983 NCBCE built critical connections between educators students employers providing work-based learning opportunities supporting educators through professional development supplemental resources

About Lenovo

Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) US$62 billion revenue global technology powerhouse ranked #171 Fortune Global 500 employing 77k people around world serving millions customers every day 180 markets Focused bold vision deliver smarter technology all Lenovo built success world largest PC company further expanding growth areas fuel advancement ‘New IT’ technologies client edge cloud network intelligence including server storage mobile software solutions services transformation together world-changing innovation building inclusive trustworthy smarter future everyone everywhere To find out more visit https://www.lenovo.com read latest news via StoryHub

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