Informatics students win 'app' design competition and meet Prime Minister
A group of second year Informatics students paid a visit to Downing Street last week, where they met Prime Minister David Cameron and Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude. The students from King’s were one of eight groups to have won a competition for mobile phone applications with their app ‘PoliticsDirect’ – designed to give voters more opportunity to contact their politicians and hold them to account.
The competition was organized by Silicon Valley Comes to the UK (SVC2UK) – a programme aiming to bring together students with technology investors and entrepreneurs. This year they held an ‘appathon’ competition instructing UK university students to programme a mobile application based on open government datasets.
Congratulating all the winners, Prime Minister David Cameron said: ‘This competition rewards the creative use of government data and I congratulate the winners. This type of innovation can produce new applications and services that generate significant social and economic benefits across our society.’ Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude added: ‘These applications prove the potential power of public data to drive entrepreneurial growth, choice and competition in public services.’
The King’s app, called ‘PoliticsDirect’, was designed by students George Ing, Anna Huckerby and Christian Clark. George explained: ‘Our app locates the mobile user’s geographical location to find their local MP, MEPs, Councillors, Council and relevant information about them such as voting record and expenses. We created this app because we felt that politicians have lost touch with the people they represent. We wanted to create an easy access opportunity for the electorate to hold their politicians to account.
‘We created the app from scratch ourselves, with me as the programmer; Anna Huckerby as the designer and Christian Clark managing the written content and presentation.
‘It was not only great fun but an amazing learning experience and we got the opportunity to connect with senior people at several major technological companies. I think I can speak for all of us in saying we are extremely pleased and proud of what we have managed to achieve in a few weeks. We’re even discussing a possible opportunity to market our product.
‘Downing Street was amazing; walking through the iconic door was a phenomenal experience, but the best moment was meeting David Cameron to tell him about our app. It was very exciting.’
Dr Steffen Zschaler, from the Department of Informatics commented: ‘I am absolutely delighted to see our students doing so well. It is great to see them engage in these competitions and be recognised for their efforts and achievements.
‘PoliticsDirect has the potential of changing the way we perceive politics and increasing our influence on the policy decisions that affect our daily lives. As such it is a great and creative way to make use of the new opportunities offered by smart phones and the large data sets recently made publicly available by the British Government. The team has produced something highly innovative and practical.’
Professor Michael Luck, Head of Department of Informatics, added: ‘Through the efforts of the students in these competitions and the efforts of the Department in promoting and organising supporting programmes, we aim to make the Department of Informatics a leader in innovation and employability. We hope this success, as recognised by the Prime Minister, is just the start.’
Watch the video ‘Students recognised for winning mobile phone apps’ on the BBC News website.