The USC Entrepreneurship Club, also known as the EclubSC, presented nine student-developed apps at its second annual Backers and Hackers Demo Day on Thursday night.
The student-run program began at the beginning of the semester. Members of the community, the “backers,” pitched their app ideas to a group of USC students, the “hackers,” in an app development class, CSCE 590, taught by Dr. Jianjun Hu. Those students created teams and spent the semester developing the apps for free.
Zachary Laprise, a first-year economics student and president of the EclubSC, said that the main goal of the program was to give the community an opportunity to see their app ideas realized.
“Backers and Hackers started because we realized that there’s a big gap between the community, who has a lot of ideas about mobile applications that they want to make, but they don’t have the technical skills to build them,” he said.
Laprise said that the program bridges that gap by connecting the community to USC students who are capable of creating the app.
Dean Kress, associate director of the Faber Entrepreneurship Center, served as the master of ceremonies for the event. He placed a strong emphasis on the initiative being “completely student-run.” He added the program provided a “great possibility of interdisciplinary communication and cooperation.”
The backers worked closely with the hackers throughout the semester to ensure their goals for the app were fully met.
“The communication will be the most important part,” said Mingxiang Zhu, a third-year computer science doctorate student who worked on Connect2nicu, about working with Shante Nixon, the creator of the app.
“She would give feedback to us, and we would improve based on that," Zhu said.
The apps presented included RedRope, which allows users to skip bar entrance lines, and Beacon, which helps coordinate relief efforts in the wake of natural disasters.
At the end of the night, the audience voted to decide the winner of the night, with the honors going to Connect2nicu, an app to assist families with children in the NICU.