JBJ: Meet the college students who hacked one of Jacksonville's biggest problems

Jacksonville Business Journal

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2016/10/18/meet-the-college-students-who-hacked-one-of.html

Michelle Burris has an idea for how to make Jacksonville better.

Burris, a 21-year-old computer science senior at Jacksonville University, developed an app idea that would bring Jacksonville residents together by incentivizing them to go to new businesses, events and volunteering opportunities throughout the city.

And she developed it in just one day.

Burris was part of the winning Innovation Week Hackathon team, an event where college students had just Friday to create solutions on a prompt, in this case, how to better create a "one Jacksonville."

Burris had never met her teammates — Max Burns, a 22-year-old business management senior and Adrian Santos, a 22-year-old computer science junior, both from University of North Florida — before the event. But together, they came up with What's App Jax, an app that rewarded residents for going to places they normally wouldn't have gone to by letting them check in, talk to new people also using the app and having a location-based game play in the app where they can cash in for prizes and discounts. The app also features an opportunity to know where there are volunteering and service opportunities, where volunteers can help out the less-fortunate, and the less-fortunate can be paid for a day's work of volunteering.

"We want everyone to come together," Burris said on Friday, ahead of winning the competition. "Instead of having all of these subcultures, we want people to come together no matter the location."

It wasn't the only app that was created. The other team — Zhenghua Lin, a UNF accounting senior; Shaunna Preston, an FSCJ communications student; Kelechi Akwataghibe, a JU math and computer science sophomore; a

Jensen covers logistics, trade, manufacturing and defense.