UC students win hackathon in San Francisco

Team creates app that incentivises businesses to donate to food banks

With an app that combats food waste and incentivises donations to food banks, two University of Cincinnati students were part of a team that won an artificial intelligence and blockchain hackathon competition in San Francisco, California.

Daniel Vennemeyer, a computer science, economics and mathematics student who also is pursuing a master’s degree in AI through UC’s Accelerated Engineering Degree, (ACCEND) program, and Phan Anh “Rai” Duong, a computer science student, were part of a team that won the grand prize in the EasyA x VeChain Bay Area Hackathon.

The UC students were thrilled to win first place, especially considering the hackathon featured top talent from throughout the world.

“It was scary because not only were we in the Bay Area, so we had all the Stanford students, all the [University of California] Berkeley students competing against us, but EasyA actually had flown out more than 100 participants from all the top colleges and top companies across the world,” said Vennemeyer, who is from Mason, Ohio.

“It wasn’t just students; it was professionals, too. Usually if you do hackathons, they’re more regional. They flew people out from Japan, Poland, France in addition to all these people who were already amazing and cool.”

A personal invitation

Two UC students tand in front of a large, honeycomb-shaped object.

University of Cincinnati students Phan Anh “Rai” Duong, left, and Daniel Vennemeyer at the EasyA x VeChain Bay Area Hackathon. Photo/Daniel Vennemeyer

The UC students were able to participate in the hackathon thanks to a personal invitation from a co-founder of EasyA, a software development and blockchain education company.

Vennemeyer, a research assistant at the Kautz-Uible Cryptoeconomics Lab housed at UC Digital Futures, traveled to Austin, Texas, for Consensus 2024 Presented by CoinDesk, the world's largest gathering that brings together all sides of the cryptocurrency, blockchain and Web3 community.

During his trip to Austin, which was funded by the Kautz-Uible Cryptoeconomics Lab, Vennemeyer met the co-founder of EasyA. He was personally invited to form a team for the EasyA x VeChain Bay Area Hackathon and given a scholarship to cover travel expenses.

“That was a deal that I didn’t want to pass up,” said Vennemeyer, who rescheduled a midterm to attend the hackathon. “If somebody else is going to pay for you to fly out to San Francisco for a weekend, it’s a pretty good deal.”

Vennemeyer immediately knew the first teammate he wanted was Duong, a friend who he often collaborates with in organizing hackathons at UC and together founded the UC AI Society.

Duong quickly accepted the invitation and was able to get a couple days off from his co-op at Great American Insurance Group, where he works integrating and automating the work of software development and information technology operations.

The UC students rounded out their team with three people they connected with through the hackathon’s group chat. Their three teammates included two college students and a software developer at Ford Motor Company.

University of Cincinnati students Daniel Vennemeyer and Phan Anh “Rai” Duong, along with the rest of their team, present their product at the EasyA x VeChain Bay Area Hackathon. Photo/EasyA

Creating a winning app

When they traveled to San Francisco, the group initially planned to develop a volunteer tracking app, which is something Vennemeyer is working on for his job at the Kautz-Uible Lab.

However, when they saw the competition categories, they decided to shift their focus.

The team chose to compete in the food and beverage category that, paired with the hackathon’s focus on sustainability, inspired their idea to create an app to combat food waste and incentivise donations to food banks.

Their concept would benefit food banks who would receive donations, businesses who would receive money for food that otherwise would have been thrown away and people in need who would receive food. The app even included dynamic incentives that offered extra rewards for donations to food banks most in need.

They only had 24 hours to execute their plan.

“It was really hectic, and everyone was sort of going all over the place,” said Duong, a Vietnam native who was drawn to UC by its co-op program.

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The first thing the group needed to focus on was creating a working app, which they named B3TRBite (pronounced like Better Bite), that had the basic features it needed to function. They were able to connect it to VeBetterDAO, a platform launched at the hackathon that promotes sustainable actions and added extra features in the competition's final hours.

“Not only were we able to talk about this and get a draft working, we were actually able to deploy it,” said Vennemeyer, a member of UC's NEXT Innovation Scholars. “We basically had a fully working app. It was still a minimum viable product, but it was a fully working app that was out by the end of that 24 hours.”

Duong helped lead the user interface and backend development of the app.

Vennemeyer developed a business strategy that used tokenomics, the study and analysis of the economic aspects of a cryptocurrency or blockchain project.

“We’re not just throwing an idea out there,” Duong said. “We’re trying to get all the different aspects in it so the app can run and can work as a company. I think that’s what actually scored us the win.”

A UC student and another team member look at computer screens.

University of Cincinnati students Phan Anh “Rai” Duong, left, works on his team's project at the EasyA x VeChain Bay Area Hackathon. Photo/Daniel Vennemeyer

More exciting opportunities

Daniel Vennemeyer stands at the base of Lombard Street in San Francisco. Photo/Daniel Vennemeyer

While the focus of their trip was the hackathon and an intense 24 hours of competition, Duong and Vennemeyer had some time to explore San Francisco as well.

“It was magnificent to see how big of an area it was and how I could go there in the future,” Duong said. “It’s very impressive.”

They stayed with fellow UC student Aaron Alvarez, a computer science student who is interning as a software engineer at Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network in San Francisco. Alvarez competed in the pitch competition of the EasyA x VeChain Bay Area Hackathon and finished second.

Their explorations through San Francisco included riding in a Waymo, which is a self-driving taxi.

“It was very exciting but very scary,” Duong said.

Vennemeyer said it was great to meet so many amazing people and to spend 24 hours with leaders from VeChain, Boston Consulting and EasyA. He hopes some of the tech leaders will speak to clubs at UC and hopes EasyA will help organize a Future of Data hackathon at UC.

“Going to these conferences, I have had multiple people after hearing what we’re doing here at UC offer me jobs on the spot, offer to fly me to San Francisco,” Vennemeyer said.

Following their win, the B3TRBite team was invited to a future hackathon in Boston. The team is open to continuing to work together, but scheduling conflicts likely will prevent them from competing in Boston.

“We could not have been more impressed with B3TRBite, a project that highlighted VeChain’s functionality as well as sustainability aims,” Felix Kwok, EasyA's head of U.S. campuses. “We can’t wait to see Daniel and his team build the project out further with their prize money.”

They're also eligible for $100,000 in grants to further develop their app. The group is considering the possibility of creating a startup business.

“It would definitely be very possible, especially with that kind of funding they would be giving us, so it’s something we’re actively discussing,” Vennemeyer said.

Featured image at top: The B3TRBite team celebrates its win at the EasyA x VeChain Bay Area Hackathon. Photo/Daniel Vennemeyer

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