On April 10 and 11, participants from the University of New Mexico (UNM) gathered at the Lobo Rainforest where 13 teams formed to fast-track and collaborate on developing their ideas.
During the two-day Lobo Hackathon, teams worked diligently to refine and develop their ideas that addressed a problem, utilized a technology, or created something entirely new. This year’s event also provided a 3D printing lab for prototype development along with the support of dedicated mentors that offered advice and assistance.
The first evening kicked off with pizza provided by Pizza 9 and presentations at the Lobo Rainforest where participants were welcomed by Donna Riley, PhD, the Jim and Ellen King Dean of Engineering and Computing at the UNM. The presentations included Hacking 101 by Lisa Kuuttila; Prototype Resource Availability by Christina Salas, PhD; Intellectual Property Overview by Gregg Banninger, PhD; and Pitch an idea or Problem by Robert Delcampo, PhD.
After the presentations, participants were invited on stage to pitch their ideas and begin forming teams. They had all evening to work on team formation and to begin collaborating on their ideas. The next morning, participants were invited back to the Lobo Rainforest to begin working on prototype development, a business model, and developing their pitches for the final presentations. Several volunteer mentors from the community and UNM Rainforest Innovations staff were around to help answer questions and provide guidance as needed.
At the end of the two days, the teams pitched their ideas to a panel of judges, followed by a few minutes of questioning, for the chance to win cash prizes. The judges this year included:
- Charles “Chuck” Call, Ph.D., CEO, GridFlow.tech
- Jeff Benefiel, SVP of Core Applications and Digital Innovations, Nusenda Credit Union
- Justin Muskopf, Lead Software Developer, RESPEC
After much deliberation, the judges selected the following teams to split the prize pool:
- $5,000 awarded to ShredLeash (Breanna Barna and Matt Channon)
- ShredLeash is tackling the overlooked problem of snowboard safety leashes. We’re a team of riders and students creating StayStrap stylish, hands-free leash that keeps boards secure, fingers safe, and beginners covered. We’re making safety a part of the snowboard culture, not an afterthought.
- $5,000 awarded to MoveIt! (Gabriela Pineda Dominguez and Ivan Pineda Dominguez)
- Tackling childhood obesity by incentivizing movement. We are developing an app that stops the use of a phone/tablet until kids participate in an entertaining physical activity.
- $2,500 awarded to VivaVape (Joshua Zamora-Griego, Jeremy Hammer, and Alexander Coker)
- VivaVape offers improved vaping technology that is healthy and sustainable for the general public and workers in polluted environments. Viva vape technology will prevent harmful metals and chemicals from being inhaled and create a healthier vape solution with lung-targeting nano-bodies that can reduce damage to the lungs from all sources.
- $2,500 awarded to Desert Rain (Tony Wallace, Frankie Baca-Lucero, and Polly Bungum)
- Innovative water crisis solution with passive rain water catchment system.
- $1,000 awarded to Readable Legislature (Calvin Stahoviak, Dayeon Yoo, Ian Tateisi, and Peter Nguyen)
- A service that makes government action more assessable and readable for individuals.
- $1,000 awarded to IncludeMe (Sarah (Hutch) Vermeulen and Yomi Tadfor)
- An app for adults with disabilities and their caregivers built with human-centered design. The app will have a built in chatbot, as well as modules for health and prescription medicine management, finances, and situational guides.
- $500 awarded to PantrySage (Roshan Subedi and Anuj Bhattarai)
- PantrySage, a food waste prevention app that notifies users of the pantry items in their household before they expire, with AI enabled smart recipes to avoid throwing away the food, along with shopping suggestions based on pantry stock and item sharing between local friends and neighbors.
- $500 awarded to MaD (Max Lambert and Dmitri Azih)
- Lobo Library unifies library services on campus, scheduling, and checkouts.
- $500 awarded to Bitez (Gabriel Gurule and James Gentry)
- Food delivery service for students on campuses in places where normal drivers can’t reach, students know campus best and can reach rooms faster and better than UberEats and DoorDash.
- $500 awarded to Bite Bank (Estevan Romero and Kalyn Chang)
- An app that simplifies getting points from fast food orders.
The additional three teams also received gift card prizes for their participation and hard work which included Nutri by Eunho Lee and Juwon Kim; AA innovations by Aboutaleb Abarham and Darius Martinez; and LifeSense by Bob Gramley and Alejandro Estrada-Munoz.
Thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s hackathon and the sponsors for their generous support:
