Winning ideas at Hacks with Friends 2018

We often celebrate the Michigan IT community for its creativity, innovation, and cross-departmental expertise. But there’s one event that truly bears out those claims: Hacks with Friends.

It’s a two-day hackathon where IT pros across U-M come together to form teams, hash out new ideas, and quickly build a prototype. But as famed investor Chris Sacca once said: ideas are cheap, execution is everything. Although many ideas were pitched (see all 26 online), only four were voted into the finals.

“Watching all of the presentations was wonderful,” said Andrew Rosenberg, chief information officer for Michigan Medicine and U-M’s interim vice president for IT and CIO. “The fact that teams can come up with things that work in the time given is remarkable. We are deeply proud to watch our students, staff, and colleagues do this kind of work.”

Rosenberg served as one of three judges alongside Stephen Stefanac, senior associate dean for the School of Dentistry, and M.S. Krishnan, associate dean for executive programs, Accenture professor of computer and information systems, and professor of technology and operations at Michigan Ross.

Here’s an overview of those four teams and their ideas.

First place: MPressive Support (team 2)

MPressive Support created a cloud-based reporting system that could be used on campus to report audiovisual problems with the push of a button. They used an Amazon Dash button to trigger an event in U-M ServiceLink, share location, and request help ASAP.

Second place: Incentivize Spirometry (team 9)

Incentivize Spirometry created a way to do just that: They 3D-printed a base with embedded hardware sensors that attaches to an incentive spirometer (IS). It transmits real-time data to a Unity-based videogame designed to incentivize proper use of the device.

Third place: Stroke Alert (team 18)

Stroke Alert imagined an app that uses facial recognition to detect a stroke before the patient is aware of symptoms. It would compare facial symmetry to a baseline photo, then alert the patient to the likelihood of stroke and provide emergency info.

Fourth place: Enterprise apps (team 22)

The enterprise apps team built a tool that inventories ITS enterprise applications and visualizes relationships between them. The diagram highlights dependencies between applications, helping to evaluate their eligibility to move to the cloud.