A team of six undergraduate and graduate students won, the Caring for the Caregiver Hackathon sponsored by the Lindsay Institute for Innovations in Caregiving. Three members of the team and the faculty advisor came from the Department of Computer Science. The winning design, called CareFood, helps caregivers develop ideas and plans about what to eat, given the burdens of caretaking and the many restrictions on food that people with Alzheimer’s disease may face due to their medication regimes. It relies on location-based crowdsourcing for recommendations.
CS team members Maoyuan Sun, Peng Mi, and Junyang Chen stayed up throughout the night to create a working prototype of the front end. Dr. Deborah Tatar, CS faculty, coached the team. Yujun Liu, from human development, represented the gerontology knowledge and assembled the team. Yong Sue from the Pamplin School developed the required approach to business, and Ross Ritsch, a freshman in International Studies, provided a fresh voice and served as a spokesman during the project presentation. Mary-Margaret Fosmark, a caregiver provided by the sponsors, advised the team about caregiver needs.
