Students from IIT, UIC, Northwestern, University of Chicago, DePaul and other schools pursued learning and prizes at the Microsoft-Multi University Hackathon held in IIT’s Idea Shop on April 5 and 6. Projects including hardware, software, and games sprang to life within the event’s 24-hour completion period. Teams presented their projects to peers and judges and received accolades for ingenuity, creativity, and how much was accomplished in 24 hours. Ten students represented IIT’s Information Technology and Management (ITM) Department.

(left to right) Bart Dworak (second from the left), IIT ITM faculty member Martin Schray, Pablo Gutierrez and Nick Clardy (far right).

The competition included three categories: Microsoft Platform Category, Any Platform Category, and the Beginner/Learned Something New category. The IIT team was awarded distinguished 1st, 2nd, and People’s Choice Awards. ITM’s Bart Dworak, Nick Clardy and Pablo Gutierrez were recognized with a People’s Choice award for their app, Donut Shop. The app challenged user’s ability to manage a donut shop by determining a business strategy in response to daily supply and demand.

ITM students were competitive in every prize category vying for top honors. Microsoft-Multi University Hackathon was co-organized by Microsoft’s Senior Technical Evangelist, Martin Schray, who is also an ITM industry professor.