A brother-sister team from Yorktown Heights won the first Westchester Smart Mobile App Development Bowl for their caregiver application.
More than 150 students from about 30 schools in the tristate area competed to develop apps to help patients with Alzheimer”™s disease and dementia. The contest was a partnership between the county government, Pace University and the David and Minnie Berk Foundation.
Westchester County Executive Robert P. Astorino announced the contest in January as one of five economic development initiatives planned for the county this year. The county held an event to celebrate the start of the program with the participants in late February. High school and college teams have been working on their apps since. Students presented their apps to a panel of professional judges at Pace University and received awards April 17.
Astorino; Amar Gupta, dean of the Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems at Pace University; and William McGrath, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Pace”™s Westchester campuses, announced the grand prize winner, Team ASSIST (App Specialists in Science and Technology). The team consists of Lindsay Aldrich, a junior at Yorktown High School, and Mark Aldrich, a freshman at Soundview Preparatory School in Yorktown Heights.
Their application makes it easier for caregivers to help patients and their families by allowing them to organize tasks and share responsibilities among each other.
The pair received $1,000 in cash as well as a camcorder, camera and headphones donated by Panasonic.
Program sponsors were Burke Rehabilitation & Research, Tata Consultancy Services, IBM, Alzheimer’s Association, Livable Communities Caregiver Collaborative, The Bristal, Nancy Goodman of the David and Minnie Berk Foundation, Panasonica, Liberty Lines, NewYork-Presbyterian Westchester Division, Ursuline Foley of the Seidenberg Advisory Board, the Mount Vernon Education Foundation and Remedy Health Media.
