Howard County Middle School Students Win National App Challenge

February 3rd, 2015

A team of five students from Lime Kiln Middle School has been selected “Best in Nation” in Verizon’s Innovative App Challenge. The team is one of eight winners nationally, selected from more than 1,000 entries submitted.

The team of 8th graders—Lauren Hayden, Annie Larkins, Rebecca Li, Korie Scott, and Jessica Zinderman—developed their mobile app concept to address a real need in their school and community. Their winning app concept, “VolunteerMe,” will match students with age-appropriate community service opportunities, which are often hard to locate.

“I’m so inspired by these students’ commitment to giving, ingenuity, and determination to see this project through. Their app concept has the potential to engage more students in community service far beyond Howard County,” stated Howard County Public School System Superintendent Dr. Renee A. Foose. “Programs like the Innovative App Challenge inspire students to develop creative solutions to real-world challenges, while helping them to learn and apply coding skills.”

As part of their award, the team will be assigned a mentor from MIT’s App Inventor Master Trainers. The mentor will provide hands-on coding instruction to bring their VolunteerMe app concept into a working app available for download on Google Play and iTunes.

The winners also receive $20,000 for their school for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) program development, a tablet computer for each team member, and an all-expense paid trip to Dallas, Texas to present their developed app at the annual Technology Student Association conference in June.

The Verizon Innovative App Challenge was created by the Verizon Foundation in partnership with the Technology Student Association to inspire student interest and achievement in STEM.