Kainos is celebrating another successful year of summer camp activities following the conclusion of August's CodeCamp and AI Camp.
As the Northern Ireland tech scene continues to grow, it's more important than ever to expose young people to tech skills such as coding as early in life as possible. Belfast-based tech firm Kainos has made an annual event of its week-long summer camps that introduce young people to the world of tech and give them a taste of what it's like to work on an innovative new project.
This year's summer camps involved over 200 young students and was run in collaboration with Queen’s University Belfast. A.I.Camp 2019 just finished a few days ago on Saturday 31st August with a 12-hour hackathon to develop machine learning based solutions to improve people's lives.
Earlier in August, CodeCamp 2019 gave 100 students aged between 14 and 18 the opportunity to develop their own smartphone app or functional website. Sync NI helped to judge the Kainos CodeCamp this year, and the standard of work from the students was absolutely phenomenal. While students were free to pick any topic they wanted for their projects, a large number of them chose environmental causes such as climate change awareness.
The CodeCamp was split into two tiers -- the Foundation camp for the younger students focused on developing an app using specialist app creation software, while the Advanced camp for the older students had them develop a functional website to solve a problem. The students then gave presentations about their ideas to a panel of judges, and the top three from each category won prizes.
CSR Manager, Gemma Crothers commented on the camp: "This is the next generation of inventors, innovators and creators, and judging by what we’ve seen over the past few weeks the future of tech will be in great hands. The aim of Kainos Academy is to help young people fulfil their potential through world-class training and mentoring."
First Place: Ellie Knox with "Avatar Studio"
"Avatar Studio is a character customization app featuring sleek UI design and high quality art. Customization features allow for different looks (All hand-drawn)! Avatar Studio allows the user create a foundation of their avatar that can have extra individual details added on top. Using your own images rather than random ones found on the web not only adds individuality but also prevents accidental copyright breaches."
Second Place: Keelan O’Kane with "Checkd?age"
"An app that lets you verify proof of age so you don’t need to carry physical proof. The user gets added to the app and gets a unique QR verification code, this code can be used by companies to verify proof of age."
Third Place: Josh Kamalrajah with "Eco Chat"
"An environmental app called “EcoChat” where users could join the app and talk to their friends, find out how much their carbon foot print is and answer “Question of the day”"
First place: Chris Magee with "Be more Green"
"Be more green inspires to help save the environment, focusing on 3 main areas of Electricity, Transport and Waste. You’re able to calculate the distance and time it will take you to reach your destination. You’re even able to see what type of electric cars exist and where charging points are. You can visit the website at www.christophermagee.me"
Second place: Rebecca Gilbert with "Free Seat"
"A simple to use real time website that shows you estimated waiting times in restaurants and cafes. It also recommends alternative restaurants/cafes with their waiting times. This lets the customer know before they arrive the amount of seating and the waiting time. This improves customer service for businesses and allows the option for table booking."
Third place: Jack Adams with "EcoEarn"
"A website that lets you earn currency through sustainable actions helps support the local charity “Keep NI Beautiful”. By attending clean-up events, visiting a Recycling Centre & using Bottle / Clothes banks, you earn virtual currency that you can spend on real rewards"
