The Department of IT recently hosted its first ever CodeFest and is thrilled at the outcome of the event.
Although the department has hosted similar events in the past – such as Dojo Coding Day, which helped improve skills of academics, students and developers by providing a fun and challenging environment to share knowledge and expertise with other developers; as well as the Hackathon, which was organised to provide a conducive atmosphere for students to design and develop mobile applications for the Windows Phone – every industry collaborative event is regarded as unique. This is because the department is always eager to engage with industry to ensure that their students are meaningfully employed.
Held last weekend (May 3, 2013 to May 5, 2013) at the IT Lab 5, DUT Ritson Campus, the competition began with the attendees pitching 19 application development ideas to fellow developers and students. “We then voted on the best ideas and narrowed the applications down to two,” said Cassim Vanker, IT Lecturer and event organiser.
The first application – a tourism application for KwaZulu-Natal – allows users to post details of attractions and events in the province (KZN). The second application – a community watch application – allows users to subscribe to load and view newsfeeds within an area. Users can also post security messages informing residents about suspicious activity within the area.
“The professional developers attending the event provided students with a “plumbing code” using a technique called dependency injection and the repository pattern. Students also learnt how to share code and deal with testers within a development team,” added Vanker.
The teams worked hard to complete their applications while competing against each other over a 22-hour period. The students then had to present their work to the panel of judges. To add incentive to the competition, the department’s sponsors provided six phones and a number of others gifts to the teams who could come up with the most innovative ideas.
Speaking during student presentations, IT Head of Department, Kesarie Singh said, “Education is about theory and practice but good education is about relevant theory and appropriate practice, and when we add industry exposure to the application, it’s like having the cherry on the top. In this regard the department would like to acknowledge the efforts of Mr Cassim Vanker who works tirelessly towards strengthening our partnership with industry. Mr Vanker has unselfishly focused his time and energy into ensuring that students have an enriched experience by always exposing them to new and emerging technologies. We are also extremely proud of our students for embracing this opportunity and making a complete success of it. The department will always be grateful to its industry partners for sharing their expertise and for their kind and generous sponsorships. On behalf of the department of Information Technology, I would like to congratulate our winners on this weekend’s achievements,” said Singh.
The applications have been published on the Department’s development webserver and can be viewed here: http://itstudents.dut.ac.za/codefestt1 and http://itstudents.dut.ac.za/codefestt2
– Nikita Smith-Morgan
Pictured: DUT Information Technology Lecturer and event organiser, Cassim Vanker (fourth from left) and IT Head of Department, Kesarie Singh (middle) with competition winners and students who had the most innovative ideas during the recently held CodeFest.
