Hack attack: McMaster students win big at AngelHack Toronto

What could you create from scratch in just 24 hours?

That was the challenge facing Alyssia Jovellanos and Jonathan Boulanger, a pair of first-year computer science students who recently took home one of the top prizes at AngelHack Toronto.

The McMaster team members were joined by Martin Ciesielski-Listwan, a first-year engineering student at Western University.

In just one day, the trio designed and tested a new academic tool known as ClassScribe. The online platform automatically converts audio lectures into summarized notes, and has the capability to list and define relevant terms.

Once registered for the service, students can record a lecture and upload it to the platform from anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection. ClassScribe analyzes the data and produces a full transcript, eliminating what was once an onerous task.

The process is similar to how Apple’s Siri personal assistant recognizes a user’s voice and delivers results in real-time.

“Since the idea was conceived and created within 24 hours, to us it only seemed like a fun little project to start. However, from our judge’s perspective, they saw it as an innovative tool with potential,” says Jovellanos, an 18-year-old from Brampton, Ont.

“As for the web application itself, ClassScribe is currently in a prototype phase. The team and I plan to continue working on it over the summer.”

A mobile ClassScribe app is also in development, which will allow users to view their converted lecture files on the go.

A hackathon is a fast-paced event in which computer programmers, graphic designers, engineers and other collaborators join forces on a bold new project.

The goal is to come up with something innovative and exciting — whether commercial or philanthropic — while working against a tight deadline. The most successful teams are able to take an idea from conception to completion in a matter of hours. Eating and sleeping are often luxuries.

AngelHack is described by organizers as “the world’s largest and most diverse global hacker community.” The Toronto competition, which took place June 13-14, accepted more than 150 developers and featured three main sponsor prizes from IBM, Branch and HP.

ClassScribe took top honours in the HP portion of the competition, and each team member received a GoPro Hero4 Silver camera as well as an idolondemand.com account.

Christopher Anand, an associate professor in McMaster’s Department of Computing and Software, taught Jovellanos and Boulanger during their first year at McMaster.

“It’s great for our students to get to measure their progress against students and professionals from across Canada, and we’re pretty proud when our first-year students come back with a prize,” says Anand.

Both students are currently working full-time with Anand as part of the University’s Computing and Software Outreach program, visiting local schools and hosting workshops on campus during the summer months.

For Jovellanos, her interest in computer science became a full-blown obsession once she came to McMaster.

“Dr. Anand is not only an incredibly knowledgeable teacher and mentor, but he also has incredible character and genuinely cares for his students as well as the future of computer science,” she says. “I feel very lucky to have been taught by him.”

Winning a major tech award is nothing new for Jovellanos.

Last year, she was chosen as one of 10 Future Dragon Fund winners, an nationwide entrepreneurial competition judged by Kevin O’Leary of the popular CBC program Dragons’ Den.

She received a $5,000 prize thanks to ongoing efforts to promote and expand Beta Pear, a multimedia company she’s been running out of her parents’ home for several years.