Some of the participants in CCNY's inaugural BYTE hackathon.
AI-powered products that offer early wildfire smoke and air quality predictions, and track tenant and landlord leases were among the winners in the inaugural “BYTE Hacks,” a 24-hour hackathon at The City College of New York. More than 100 students from schools in the Metropolitan area, including New York University, Fordham, Rutgers Honors College, Stony Brook and Hunter College, participated in the event sponsored by Google Labs, Vercel, and Red Bull.
Organized by BYTE (Build Your Technical Experience), a CCNY student club, the hackathon offered $5,000 in prizes. Project themes were: planetary protection, transformative learning, strengthen society; and innovation and creative expression. All the winners are computer science majors.
The top prize went to a four-member team, comprising CCNY, Brooklyn and Hunter students, for its product “Respira.” It delivers early wildfire smoke and air quality predictions with AI, giving vulnerable groups and communities time to prepare, protect their health, and breathe safer.
The winning team comprised CCNY juniors Zhoulin Li and Aditya Jha ; Hunter’s Arun Sisarran (junior) and sophomore Faizan Khan of Brooklyn College.
“RentMinder,” an AI platform designed to keep track of tenants and landlords' leases, took second place overall. It parses and updates the information from the leases, and sends out reminders to tenants regarding important dates.
A CCNY-Baruch collaboration, its creators were junior Zach Stybel and senior Ye Moe from the latter, and sophomore Tamim Kabir from the former.
Third place went to “Delta,” a developer tool aimed at simplifying merge conflicts and version control management when software developers work together on large projects.
It was built by the Hunter trio of Tahmid Ahmed (senior), Shadman Farhan (sophomore), Angela Yu (junior); and NYU junior Alfardil Alam.
"BYTE Hacks aimed to give CUNY and SUNY students a platform to show the world what they're capable of,” said Jawad Kabir, lead hackathon organizer, and a CCNY senior majoring in computer science. “A massive thank you to our sponsors: Vercel, Red Bull, and especially Google Labs for funding the whole event.”
In addition, Google Labs held three tech workshops over the course of the hackathon, allowing students to gain insights on Jules (Asynchronous Coding Agent), Google AI Studio, and Doppl.
About BYTE
BYTE is a student club at The City College of New York focused on helping students gain practical experience building programming based projects & fostering a larger CS community on campus.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Lightcast puts at $3.2 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers, and society. At City College, more than 16,500 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity, and scholarship. In 2023, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together,” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College's mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic, and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Jay Mwamba
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jmwamba@ccny.cuny.edu