This week I will be introducing you to the finalists of the Conrad Foundation Spirit of Innovation Awards program. The Spirit of Innovation Awards program challenges teams of high school students to create innovative products using science, technology, and entrepreneurship to solve 21st century, real-world problems.
Starting on April 13 through 27, 2011 you can vote in "The People's Choice Award". All votes will be counted and stored in a mayonnaise jar at a secret vault in Silicon Valley until the closing awards ceremony on May 1st, 2011 at NASA Ames.
Eligible students may compete on teams in any of three Challenge Categories.
Starting on April 13 through 27, 2011 you can vote in "The People's Choice Award". All votes will be counted and stored in a mayonnaise jar at a secret vault in Silicon Valley until the closing awards ceremony on May 1st, 2011 at NASA Ames.
Eligible students may compete on teams in any of three Challenge Categories.
Learn more about the Conrad Foundation here! Website - Previous Blog Post:
Cyber Security:
Create a smartphone app to enhance our awareness of, and protection against threats around us.
Cellular phones have become ubiquitous extensions of our lives. As smartphone technology improves, our phones will augment not only our voices, but also our situational awareness (knowledge of where we are, how fast we're moving and in what direction, what is around us, and how to get where we want to be). Many of us have used applications such as Google Maps to help us find directions from our location to a destination. Even better, we can share our awareness with our friends. All we need are the tools to take advantage of the information.
Unfortunately, these technologies do not have any built-in mechanisms for determining potential hazards of use. While most of us want to do only moral and ethical things with our phones, there are those who will use these same capabilities to steal data and information. As smartphone apps multiply in number, knowledge of their vulnerabilities will also increase. Yet the public understanding of these threats remains an undercurrent of thought at most. This challenge asks Spirit of Innovation Awards teams to identify potential security concerns and design an application for any carrier (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc.) that either helps the user understand the threat or helps protect the user against it.
The security concerns could be online (e.g. exposing your bank account information) or offline (e.g. exposing your physical location to a hunter/predator). Competitors should think about how the phone could assist in real-world threat identification and protection as well as purely on the internet.
Team Infiniti Cyber Security
Intelliscan: Our product is a security application for the iPhone which defends against malicious threats targeted towards users through smart filtering and real-time shielding.
School:
KIPP: Houston High School
Team Members:
Taaha Akhatar
Nhan Thai
Town:
Houston, TX
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Team Lambda2.4
DroidShepherd is a tool for the Android Mobile Platform that provides the capability to detect and disable 'Firesheep' session sidejacking attempts on public Wi-Fi networks. By strategically sending out fake and random data and listening for a response, DroidShepherd will effectively combat hacking efforts that operate by stealing authenticated session cookies.
School:
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
Team Members:
Carrie Sun
Kevin Sun
Town:
Alexandria, VA
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Team Los Altos Academy of Engineering
ShadowVigil is a Smartphone application that provides offline safety mechanisms through the use of satellite thermal images.
School:
Los Altos Academy of Engineering
Team Members:
Teresa Chen
Stephanie Sosa
Town:
Hacienda Heights, CA
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Team SARA
S.A.R.A. is a multi-platform smartphone application that is designed to respond to cases of sexual assault. It accomplishes this by autonomously contacting emergency services and by gathering information valuable to the prosecution by using the microphone, GPS locator, and video camera data accessible from a smartphone.
School:
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
Team Members:
Angela Zhang
Violette Zhu
Joseph Moo-Young
William Su
Town:
Durham, NC
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Team R Squared
Dependable Ride is a mobile application that allows users to send a notification to all nearby friends alerting them of their need for a safe mode of transportation. It will allow users to easily get rides from nearby friends.
School:
Beverly Hills High School
Team Members:
George Qiao-Guan
Raj Vir
Ronit Kumar
Matthew Forman
Cole Hackbarth
Town:
Los Angeles, CA
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Scientifica White Hats
The Phone Guard is an all‐in‐one master security system for smartphones. With a small fee of only $10 for the app, the PhoneGuard uses face recognition, finger print size recognition, average finger tap recognition, gps coordination alerts, ed flag alerts, Bluetooth filtration, and spam, call, and text prevention to make it the most demanded security product.
School:
Northern High School
Team Members:
Leighannae Oh
Sidhartha Jandhyala
Cody Leovic
Tim Kang
Town:
Durham, NC
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Team UniSecurity
MedPAL is a smartphone application that works in conjunction with a Bluetooth enabled heart rate monitor worn by the user. In response to irregularities in heart rate, MedPAL will automatically contact a call center and/or personal emergency contacts based on GPS coordinates, as well as alerting those in the vicinity verbally and displaying important medical information.
School:
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
Team Members:
Ada Taylor
Greeshma Somashekar
Katrina Gutierrez
Town:
Durham, NC
The awards that they offer here is so good. They are definitely very deserving of these awards. The hard work has paid off here. Keep up the good work. Towing Companies Toronto
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