A Department of Engineering team was announced the winner of the Appathon competition after designing a prototype app called Smart Wear.
Appathon is a national competition to boost entrepreneurship by inviting young pupils to come up with ideas for smartphone apps that could be used to enhance their lives. After students came up with app concepts, they were matched up with university teams to further develop the ideas. A group of three pupils from Notre Dame High School in Inverclyde came up with an original concept, which was chosen by the Cambridge team as a basis to design an app.
The team – which included Department of Engineering students Benjamin Moss and Evgeny Roskach, Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) student Joseph Mambwe and IfM alumnus Patrick Siu – designed Smart Wear, a functional prototype app that displays virtual clothing over a photo of a subject. The plan is for retailers and clothiers to interface with the app and for users to be able to create a virtual wardrobe. The app also supports social media sharing of outfit combinations.
The Cambridge group beat more than 100 other students to earn the first prize, which was awarded at a reception at the House of Commons. They will take a trip to California’s Silicon Valley later this summer, where they will get the chance to tour and meet with tech giants such as Google, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Founders4Schools, which organised the event, is an educational programme that connects entrepreneurs and students to illustrate the real-world value of science, technology, engineering and maths.
