This past weekend, we hosted our 2024 Appapalooza event. This virtual live pitch event is the season culmination for our Technovation Girls MN participants, giving them the opportunity to pitch their projects to a panel of judges. This year, 37 teams completed and submitted their mobile application and AI projects for our local judging, and if you’re super interested in how the entire day progressed, you can catch all of their live pitches on the Appapalooza page of our website.
After many hours of judging leading up to Appapalooza, and with all of the live pitch performances completed, our 45 industry judges decided the 2024 Technovation Girls MN winners, and prizes were given out the very next day during our Code Savvy Celebrate! event. (photos coming soon!)
Here is the recap of our 2024 Technovation Girls MN Winners, organized by division:
(Jump to: Junior Division Senior Division )
Beginner Division
Team: Blake 6th Grade
App: SmartCarbon
Project Description:
Our app is inspired by the UN’s sustainable development goal #13, which is climate action. We chose to make our app a tool to help users take action and lower their carbon emissions. Our app calculates the carbon emissions of people’s daily actions. On our app, people can figure out the carbon emissions of their lifestyle such as their driving, house, and diet, and then learn ways to reduce them. Individuals input their lifestyle and the app outputs their carbon emissions and ways to reduce them. This helps individuals find ways to decrease their impact on the climate.
Pitch Video:
Team: The Blobfish
App: Street Solutions
Project Description:
Street Solutions is an app helping homeless individuals find shelters, transportation, and medical appointments. It has a forum for community support to help volunteers and homeless people connect. There is also an SOS button for emergencies. It’s designed to simplify access to essential services and create a supportive community for those in need.
Pitch Video:
Team: EcoChef
App: EcoChef
Project Description:
EcoChef aims to combat food waste by suggesting recipes based on the ingredients users already have, reducing unnecessary purchases and wasting by not using their ingredients. My app promotes sustainable food practices and helps contribute to a more efficient use of resources in the kitchen.
Pitch Video:
Team: EcoPixel
App: Enviro
Project Description:
Enviro is an app that scans the UPC barcode of any product to see if there are any nano plastic ingredients in any product from toothpaste to clothing. Additionally, Enviro highlights the nanoplastic ingredients in red and offers details explanation for why it is bad. Enviro curates four product alternatives for products that have nanoplastics ensuring the user makes the best shopping decision every time.
Pitch Video:
Junior Division
(Jump to: Senior Division Beginner Division )
Team: Aspiring Minds
App: Design Your Brain
Project Description:
Our app’s name is Design Your Brain. Its purpose is to enhance brain health and improve our user’s attention, memory, and focus, among other skills. Additionally, we are teaching them about their brain through a variety of lessons, videos, games, and quizzes. We target skills that are most important in everyday life. Our app, so far, consists of four fully created levels. We have also included a Brain Buddy, which reads out the text for visually challenged people. These components all come together as one creative unique way to improve brain health and neuroeducation.
(Note: you may access the app via mobile https://copy-8-kjb6tl.flutterflow.app/ )
Pitch Video:
Team: Radiant Royals
App: Sunshine for Seniors
Project Description:
Senior living residents are often lonely and miss senior living activities because they cannot follow the activity calendar or need encouragement to participate. The Sunshine for Seniors app, allows residents’ family members to view the facilities activity calendar, and choose which activities their family member would like to attend. This triggers the facilities caregivers to remind, encourage, and escort the resident to that activity. After the activity, families receive an event report and photos. This app will decrease loneliness in seniors, by increasing participation in activities, and strengthen senior communities by improving the connection between facilities, families and residents.
Pitch Video:
Team: Tiny Thinkers
App: Tiny Thinkers
Project Description:
Tiny Thinkers directly addresses the lack of accessible educational resources for children with autism. This all-in-one learning hub enriches social and emotional development through engaging videos, interactive quizzes, and structured lessons. Focused on crucial skills like emotion recognition and social interactions, which are struggles for children with autism. Our app is a comprehensive, easy-to-use platform that makes it easier for parents who often struggle to find appropriate tools to support their child’s unique needs. Tiny Thinkers is an accessible and effective solution that helps autistic children flourish.
Pitch Video:
Team: WMS-JAASS
App: PengGreen Goals
Project Description:
PengGreen Goals is an app developed by WMS-JASS to help people be more sustainable in their everyday lives. In PengGreen Goals, users set and track goals for themselves related to the environment. PengGreen Goals already has recommended goals carefully selected by extensive research that users can select, or users can create their own goals. As you complete more goals, you can gain in app points you can use to interact with and level up PengGreen Goals’ penguin mascot. PengGreen Goals makes living sustainably more fun and user friendly.
Pitch Video:
Senior Division
(Jump to: Junior Division Beginner Division )
Team: DiaBuddies
App: DiaBuddies
Project Description:
Children diagnosed with diabetes face unique challenges in managing their blood sugar levels effectively. The new responsibilities of constantly monitoring levels, making good dietary choices, increasing physical activity, and insulin intake can be a scary task for kids. The current market for blood sugar monitoring lacks a child-friendly interface and does not engage younger users in the process. This can lead to greater complications as the children do not adhere to the motoring schedule. By creating a user experience tailored to their needs and preferences, DiaBuddies encourages regular monitoring and promotes better diabetes management for children.
Pitch Video:
Team: Gratzi
App: Gratzi
Project Description:
Gratzi is a social enterprise whose mission is to help young adults find gratitude, in hopes of improving their mental health. Gratzi is a gratitude journaling app that allows users to document what they are grateful for by collecting entries in a master list which reappears at the end of each month. This process fosters introspective understanding and conversations within individuals. Gratzi aims to increase hormones and neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine by prompting users’ brains to recognize positive aspects of life and using active recall. Gratzi provides a higher likelihood of happiness and satisfaction in their daily lives.
Pitch Video:
Team: Lunanators
App: Luna – Period Justice for all
Project Description:
Luna is an app for women all over Minnesota and beyond. Partnering with PeriodKits MN, Luna empowers women by making period care accessible and fights against the stigma around menstruation. It includes an interactive map to guide users to nearby period donation centers to get essential supplies. Luna is dedicated to providing quality education about period care, breaking down myths and highlighting the facts. By connecting, educating, and empowering, Luna builds a community where women can support other women. With every download, Luna challenges societal norms and embraces period justice for all.
Pitch Video:
Team: Swift Pixels
App: Oculum AI
Project Description:
Oculum AI accurately predicts the early onset of hypertension, ocular cancer, diabetic retinopathy, and Alzheimers through the analysis of front-facing retina eye images before symptoms manifest. Developed in XCode, using SwiftUI for the interface and basic functionality, Oculum AI uses a Core ML model for image analysis correctly diagnosing these diseases with a 90% accuracy.
