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  • March 10, 2017
  • Lisa Eikenburg

Today, Facebook hosted the final judging of the "Making College Possible Coding Challenge" at its New York City office – and the Campus HIVE project team including Fredonian Kermit B. Mitchell III was honored as the fourth place finisher out of 70 teams.

The project team included Mitchell, of Glen Cove, a graduate of Uniondale High School, and Justin King, a sophomore Electrical Construction and Maintenance major at Alfred State College from Uniondale. The team received $2,000 for its effort.

Mitchell is a volunteer host in Fredonia’s Office of Admissions Campus Host Program, introducing potential new students to the campus, and a tutor. He is also an aspiring engineer and software developer, and the co-founder and CTO of Ideayet, Inc. Mitchell and King were high school friends who decided to partner in the challenge.

The challenge winner was team Knight from Queens College, followed by Fast Pass, also from Queens; Collegium from SUNY Albany, Campus HIVE, and Stony Brook University’s Team Chepang.

The "Making College Possible Coding Challenge" invited students from SUNY and CUNY schools to build a mobile app or website to share information about the Excelsior Scholarship, Governor Andrew Cuomo's first-in-the-nation proposal to make public college tuition-free for New York's working- and middle-class families.

More than 370 students participated in the “Making College Possible Coding Challenge,” and the five finalist teams were invited to the final judging and pitch session in New York.

“New York’s spirit of innovation and creativity is on full display in its world-class public university system and in this one-of-a-kind competition,” Governor Cuomo said. “The ideas each student team will bring to this final judging are shining examples of the ways technology and education intersect, and a great way to share information about college affordability and accessibility. The Excelsior Scholarship will allow thousands of New York students like them to attend college tuition-free, and I commend each competitor for providing a platform to highlight this important issue.”

As part of the final judging, the challenge finalists pitched their products to a panel of New York’s business and technology leaders, who selected the winning submission. Judges included Neil Blumenthal, CEO and co-founder of Warby Parker; Jeanne Jang, director of the IBM Innovation Lab; Jeff Reynar, engineering director, Facebook New York; and Judith Spitz, Ph.D., founding program director, Women in Technology and Entrepreneurship in New York, and former Chief Information Officer, Verizon.


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