UC students compete in CID, FIS Virtual Hackathon
Cincinnati Innovation District, FIS connect virtually with UC and national student tech talent
The University of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Innovation District hosted the first ever Virtual Hackathon presented by Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) — providing students from UC and colleges across the country a unique opportunity to create virtual apps using clever IT skills.
The goal of the competition gave student teams a chance to show-off their creative digital prowess and learn valuable, innovative digital skills while working with personnel from FIS — a leader in merchant, capital markets and banking digital payment solutions and one of UC 1819’s newest industry partners.
Opportunities like this give students the chance to experience FIS — one of the world’s leading payment processing companies, says David J. Adams, UC chief innovation officer.
“Students might know Venmo or PayPal — but they probably don't know that FIS helps power them,” says Adams. “It’s all about connecting talent. It is experiences like these that provide meaningful opportunities for our students and business partners.
"We are continually innovating to meet the talent needs of our partners and are excited that this venue attracted students from our great university and from others as well."
While the majority of student competitors were from the University of Cincinnati, students from tech institutes and colleges around the U.S. joined in from as far away as Worcester Polytechnic Institute and UMASS Lowell in Massachusetts, Georgia Institute of Technology, Cardinal Stritch University in Wisconsin, Miami, Kettering and Ohio State Universities and several more.
UC first-year IT grad student Jillian Nolte gets excited after learning her "ZCF Innovation" team won first-place in the FIS Hackathon competition.
From the beginning, each of 10 teams was tasked with designing digital algorithms to upload and analyze lists of various student resumes, including individual interests and experiences while swiftly matching these data to jobs with companies that would likely be interested in them.
And while words like Git, Python and spider nodes may conjure up images of chasing away danger, in the world of cyberspeak, especially during the FIS competition, those terms and more were just a few of the valuable installation tools used for digital design and creative programming.
“Taking part in this apprenticeship opened my eyes to the world of technology and made me realize there are some incredible opportunities available to bridge the gender gap, since women are still very much outnumbered in IT,” says Jillian Nolte, UC first-year IT grad student and member of UC’s ZCF Innovation team. “This experience also helped change my career path, as I am now enrolled in UC's master’s of Information Technology program and plan to pursue roles in software development or cybersecurity upon graduation.”
The hackathon’s innovation agenda and close student/industry collaboration are strong tenets that uniquely align with UC’s strategic direction called Next Lives Here.
Digital match-making for jobs
During the hackathon weekend competition, teams of students worked together virtually designing match-making apps that would ideally connect student talent to specific industries that need that talent.
Similar to the popular platform LinkedIn, the goal of the Hackathon challenge was for each team to create a tool that allows programmers to collect valuable student information in order to partner them with industry through appropriate internships, co-ops and other experiential opportunities.
“We chose this exact virtual challenge to have access to what we need most — talent,” says Brannon McDaniel, senior leader of Merchant Solutions Technology at FIS. “Through the CID and events like this, we’re gaining access to the best talent across the country.”
UC computer engineering student Jakob Wardega worked on building a digital app with his teammates virtually using two computer screens and a smartphone.
The end result led the teams to designing an app similar to Tinder, which allowed students to go through job postings and choose the ones that most interest them, sort of like a dating app for jobs.
“The word ‘interest’ is worth highlighting as it was what we chose to focus on when designing our app titled LinkedUp,” says Nolte. “We wanted students to be able to share their career, academic and personal interests and be matched with employees that share similar interests. It’s the connections that students make that will help them land their next job and are what we believe our LinkedUp app will achieve.”
While competitions like this can be a little intimidating at first, FIS mentors helped the students get out of the starting gate by providing sample datasets to help them create and test their solutions.
John Hoyt, member of the hackathon winning team "ZCF Innovation" enjoys the creative problem solving aspect of virtual competitions.
“I got into computer engineering because I like the feeling of building desirable solutions and this directly translated into the FIS Hackathon where we were tasked with making a robust surveying system,” says Jakob Wardega, UC fourth-year computer engineering student. “While I was worried about the success of a virtual hackathon, I found it fun and exciting and FIS proved that they work.”
As a UC computer engineering major, Priya Tailor first became interested in high school where she took classes that involved building circuits for programming. Other UC computer engineering competitors like John Hoyt have had lifelong passions for creativity and problem solving that he says naturally led to an interest in software development because it combines both.
“I love the sense of community that comes from being a developer,” claims Hoyt. “If you’re struggling to fix an issue with your code you can rest assured that other developers have faced similar issues and can help through their own solutions.
“I enjoyed this competition because it was a great opportunity to network with other students of different backgrounds and gave me an idea of the challenges I’ll come across in this field in the future.”
Tech team to talent pool
As part of the second-place "Cookie Monsters" hackathon team, UC third-year computer science students from left Zaina Qasim and Elizabeth Tremblay worked with a team of close friends perfecting their proof of concept prototype using Adobe XD.
As daunting as a hackathon competition may seem to onlookers, students said they had enough time-off woven into the weekend schedule to reboot, recharge and flex their cyber muscles each day.
Strong digital coding skills played a large role in how well the students succeeded but strategies that led to discovering their teammates strengths and weaknesses are what Tailor says helped them gain the most valuable management skills.
From the beginning, FIS provided critical tips and tricks for launching a well-run team by focusing on the most efficient scoring rubrics, setting short-term goals that can be easily met and eliminating unnecessary action points that waste time.
On the last day of the event, surviving teams with clever names like Data-Pirates, Casual Coders and CookieMonsters, were given five to six minutes to give their final video or PowerPoint presentations on their data-crunching app designs before a very impressed panel of FIS judges.
Jillian Nolte interacts with her on-screen team members from left John Hoyt, Connor Wolfe and Amara Cummins after learning their "ZCF Innovation" team won the competition for best digital app design.
Finishing out the weekend, the winning certificate went to UC’s ZCF Innovation team, which included IT or computer engineering students Jillian Nolte, Amara Cummins, Connor Wolf and John Hoyt.
Impressed overall, the FIS judges touted seven of the ten final team presentations as “top-notch” and those students will subsequently become an integral part of a tech talent pool for FIS, says Kelsey Planck, FIS’s 1819 Innovation Hub program manager.
“We were so inspired by how well the teams collaborated remotely and came up with such unique digital programming solutions. While we were only able to choose one winner, we were so impressed with the professionalism and quality shown in all of the final team presentations,” adds Planck.
Featured image at top: UC fourth-year computer engineering student Jakob Wardega joined his teammates virtually in the 2020 FIS Hackathon weekend competition. Photos/provided
Innovation Lives Here
The University of Cincinnati, classified as a Research 1 institution by the Carnegie Commission, is ranked in the National Science Foundation's Top-40 public research universities and secured a spot on Reuter’s World’s Most Innovative Universities list. UC's students and faculty investigate problems and innovate solutions with real-world impact. Next Lives Here.
Related Stories
Working out worked out for UC student Emma Kalinowski
May 5, 2025
When Emma Kalinowski first arrived at UC, she went through a handful of major changes before her burgeoning love of fitness led her to the School of Human Service's Exercise Science program. Now a senior about to graduate and inspired by a recent internship experience, she's readying to start a master's program in the fall. The CECH student spoke with us about her time at UC and her plans for a career in pediatric exercise physiology.
UC celebrates record spring class of 2025
May 2, 2025
UC recognized a record spring class of 2025 at commencement at Fifth Third Arena.
Leveling up
May 2, 2025
Meet four College of Allied Health Sciences students who are advancing their education following graduation this May.