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For a Fifth Consecutive Year Morgan Ingenuity is Showcased Amid a Competitive Field of HBCU Scholars
A team of four students from Morgan State University’s Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. School of Engineering (SOE) and School of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (SCMNS) participated, and successfully placed, in a three-day creative and skill-based competition between the nation’s best and brightest scholars from 13 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Held this past September in Austin, Texas, the Black Enterprise 2019 BE SMART Hackathon challenged student teams of four to collaboratively develop a unique new program. Morgan’s team stepped up to the challenge to take third place in the innovation portion of the competition and fifth place in the overall Hackathon. This marks the fifth consecutive year that Morgan has participated in the BE SMART Hackathon, the Bears were the inaugural year champions.
Morgan’s team of contending engineers included:
- Victor Oyare Oko, senior, majoring in Electrical Engineering
- Joshua Smith, senior, majoring in Computer Science
- Saraah Cooper, senior, majoring in Computer Science, and
- William Fishman, junior, majoring in Electrical Engineering
Participating teams engaged in an immersive hackathon, exercising their multidisciplinary skills to come up with a creative new app product to present for evaluation. Judges assessed the students’ apps in terms of its projected impact, innovation, and technical achievement, as well as the students’ teamwork capabilities and presentation skills. After meeting with each of the teams one-on-one, the judges selected the top five to present their products on stage before the attending audience.
Competing against the Morgan team were teams from: Alabama A&M University, Bowie State University, Dillard University, Fisk University, Hampton University, Jackson State University, Johnson C. Smith University, Lincoln University, Morehouse College, North Carolina A&T University, Tuskegee University, and Xavier University of Louisiana.
Held annually as the lead-in to Black Enterprise’s TechConneXt (TCX) Summit, the BE SMART Hackathon provides HBCU students with access to informative workshops, coaching, career advice, and student tours at the largest tech companies’ headquarters. This year’s event sponsors included American Airlines, Dell Technologies, PayPal, Electronic Arts, and Prudential Financial.
Congratulations to our next generation computer and electrical engineers from Morgan and thank you for representing the National Treasure on the national stage.
