Howard University Computer Science Students Named a Winning Team at 8th Annual Black Enterprise Smart Hackathon

Howard University computer science juniors Myles D. Block, Matthew A. Getachew, Malik Y. Stewart, Brandon Clarke and Ryan Taylor were named a winning team at the 8th Annual Black Enterprise Smart Hackathon. Anietie Andy, Ph.D. (MSc ’09; Ph.D. ’17), assistant professor of computer science, served as faculty advisor for the team. 

Contestants included 180 students comprising 36 teams from 25 HBCUs across the country. Engaging in friendly competition, contestants had the opportunity to showcase their technical skills and gain practical experience using emergent application programming interfaces. This year’s theme, All Code No Switch, inspired our students to create their winning app Quickbook within the competition’s 24–hour window. 

Quickbook assists American Airlines’ travelers with customer service issues such as missed flights. For example, if a customer misses a flight, Quickbook can automatically suggest other American Airlines flights to the same destination around the same departure time. If there is no American Airlines flight available, Quickbook can then suggest other non-American Airlines flights. Customers can also book hotels via Quickbook. 

Student teams were evaluated by a team of judges based on their app’s feasibility and usability, and the effectiveness of the platform used to build the app.