AppRuption
This week, on Thursday 19th and Friday 20th May, Startup Almere and the Flevoland Development Agency (OMFL) organized AppRuption, an event where teams of Information Engineering students of Windesheim Flevoland competed against each other to create the most innovative app prototype.
At the event a group of 35 students was split up in teams that came up with viable business ideas around the theme “sustainable and healthy city”. The students worked on an actual app prototype in just two days time. Especially the link between business ideas and IT was crucial during the event.
On Thursday, teams were formed for brainstorm sessions to think of great business ideas for new, innovative (mobile) apps. The business ideas were pitched, tested and refined. Students also interviewed random people on the street to get better insight in the potential of their idea. Entrepreneur Robin Schuil (co-founder of Marktplaats.nl) assisted the student teams in this brainstorm process.
Friday was the day for the actual technical implementation of the prototypes. An important aspect of the event was also to connect students with local IT companies as early in their study program as possible. Four Flevoland IT companies, (Avanade, Centric, Voiceworks and Elements Interactive) sent representatives to accompany the teams and provide them with additional technical skills to get the prototypes out in just a day. Elements’ Maks and Oleksander were present to assist a team of students. Maks and Oleksander, both seasoned senior mobile developers, brought their expertise to help their two teams creating their prototypes.
On Friday, starting around 18:00 all seven teams presented their prototypes to the jury consisting of Maurice Noordhoff of Windesheim Flevoland, Ineke Mastenbroek of OMFL and Robin Schuil. In their selection process, the jury looked at the idea that was most innovative, had the biggest impact on sustainable and healthy cities and had the best business potential.
All seven teams came with great ideas and even better prototypes — and considering the time pressure all teams did a tremendous job. However, as in every competition, there can be only one winner. Ultimately, the jury picked one great app prototype called “Sporting”, a portmanteau of the Dutch words “Sport voor korting” (Sports with discount).
“Sporting” was created by the team that happened to be accompanied by Elements’ senior developer Maks. The winning app revolves around keeping the user active and fit by rewarding them for doing sports activities.
You can find a couple of screenshots of the app prototype below. Nike Runkeeper can be synced with the app, also the user can view their goals and the progress of their achievements. After collecting a certain amount of points the user is rewarded with a voucher that can be redeemed in an external voucher app such as eVoucherInfo.
Congratulations to student team members Branco, Dylan, Koen, Mark, Mursel and Richard and colleague Maks! Great work, guys!
Hopefully the students that participated in AppRuption got a taste for mobile app development and will consider a future career in app development!
Originally published at www.elements.nl on May 20, 2016.
