November 15 & 16, 2019: Hackathon

5 Hope Life Skills students represented Hope High at this year’s problem-solving

‘Hack the Power’ Global Hackathon at the Rocky Hill Country Day School

last Friday evening and all day Saturday.

Hope High’s Ambar Tavaras, Omayra Corporan, Lydia Watkins, Hector Guererro, and Jose Quintanilla

were active collaborators at the Hackathon. Other schools participating in the Hackathon were Rocky Hill Country Day, East Greenwich High School, Chariho High School, The Met School, Bishop Hendricken, The Wheeler School, and Narragansett High School.

The event was officially called the “Rhode Island Hack for Global Good” with a theme of “Solution 2 Pollution.” The Hackathon objective was for groups of 10 to 12 students from different schools collaborate to create potential solutions that someday might solve some of the planet’s critical pollution problems. The solutions from the more than 40 student participants included genetically engineered bio-luminescent trees harvested from nuclear power plant coolant water, apps that measure personal energy consumption and CO2 scrubbers on car tailpipes.

Hope High School students with the Hackathon co-founder and Rocky Hill Country Day senior, Cortlandt Meyerson. From left to right – Omayra Corporan, Cortlandt, Amber Tavaras, Hector Guererro, and Lydia Watkins.

Hector, Jose, and Ambar participating in one of the collaborations at the Hackathon

Lydia and Omayra (top left in photo) at a design thinking presentation by two, successful design thinkers during the hackathon.

Hope High School’s Lydia Watkins shows her make-up designs to the Founder and CEO of “The Ocean Agency“, Richard Vevers. Richard’s agency is photographing the plight of the ocean’s coral reefs with significant corporate sponsorships from companies like Adobe. Richard was amazed at Lydia’s designs and spoke about how her designs could help amplify the message of the ocean’s coral destruction. Sitting with Richard was Hope High School’s Omarya Corporan and students from Bishop Hendricken and Rocky Hill as well as Arnel Millhouse from the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship at Brown University. BTW – Richard was very impressed with Lydia make-up designs. A potential collaboration?? Stay tuned as Lydia continues to network with Richard.

Second row in the audience awaiting the opening remarks by “The Ocean Agency” CEO Richard Vevers and Arnell Milhouse from the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship at Brown University: from left to right – Ambar, Omayra, Jose, Lydia, and Hector.