U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park posted these two tweets, among others, about his INNOV8 experience in Lafayette last week: "Silicon Bayou — aka Lafayette, Louisiana — is the best kept secret reservoir of innovation mojo in America." "Massively inspired after spending time a #cajuncodefest — amazing competitors; go innovators go!"
Ending childhood obesity was the mission of CajunCodeFest, an INNOV8 Lafayette event that took place Friday and Saturday at the Picard Center, Abdalla Hall and LITE on the UL Lafayette Research Park campus. With a grand prize of $25,000, the event attracted software designers and engineers, undergraduate/graduate students, health care policy leaders, hospital administrators, wellness/nutrition experts, researchers and entrepreneurs who have a stake in improving kids’ health care. Twenty teams comprised of more than 125 participants competed, with more than 260 people attending. The event was “completely sold out,” says Ramesh Kolluru, director of UL Lafayette’s Center for Business and Information Technologies. “[We] turned away over 60 people.”
The center partnered with U.S. Health and Human Services, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, FiberCorps and the private sector on the competition. The two-day coding competition transformed health care data into innovative technology solutions that address childhood obesity.
Public sector leaders in attendance included Park, who was recently appointed chief technology officer of the U.S. by President Obama, and Bruce Greenstein, secretary of the Louisiana DHH. Park helped create healthdata.gov, a publicly accessible health data website, in addition to hosting code-a-thons like CajunCodeFest across the nation. It was Greenstein who stepped up to make Park’s participation happen, Kolluru says.
In the past 1.5 years, code-a-thons resulted in more than 50 products, including apps and websites to help patients locate doctors and better manage medications, and launched startups that commercialize those technologies. Joining CajunCodeFest from the private sector were Jay Walker, founder of Priceline.com and curator of TEDMED; Sean Nolan, who runs the HealthVault team at Microsoft; Jose Ramos from Northrop Grumman; and Lafayette native Jared Quoyeser from Intel Corporation.
Competing teams had just more than 24 hours to analyze data, brainstorm ideas and create digital prototypes. The stakes were high: the winning concept and team, “PlayFit” by team BE CAMP VB, received $25,000 and entry to the invitation-only U.S. Health Datapalooza competition.
BE CAMP VB created a system to manage “pickup” games and events, targeting at-risk kids and engaging community groups like churches and the YMCA. “In today’s world it’s much harder to wander downtown and find folks to play ball with — I love that they’ve revived a concept that has both physical and emotional benefits,” Microsoft's Nolan wrote on his blog.
The other cool thing about this team was that they didn’t even know each other before the event. “I matched them up and they just clicked,” Kolluru says.
“The Eating Game” by team Flying Fighting Mongooses were the surprise student team winners, taking home $10,000. Microsoft's Nolan, who served as one of the judges, wrote of the students’ concept: “In one sense this was a classic diet-based challenge system. Eating choices are awarded points, and students and classes in schools compete to get the most points. What I loved about this solution was the details. The team really honed in on how to make this relevant to schools. They knew their market and they had laser-focus. This is so often missing, and it’ll kill a startup. They also took a novel approach to the problem of “cheating” — designing a game that was still effective at education even if kids do cheat. These kids rocked, and I really hope they’ll work with the Lafayette Parish School System soon to pilot their program in the school system.”
“Health Hero” by team PixelDash won “best use of Microsoft technology,” taking home some Xboxes and HealthVault-connected pedometers, plus tuition to attend the new gaming academy in Lafeyette. “This was the first ever nutrition “game” I would actually play,” Nolan wrote. “They used the Kinect to build a grocery bagging game, forcing you to identify quickly-approaching foods as ‘fruits’ or ‘veggies’ and putting them in the right bag. Imagine ‘high fat’ vs. ‘low fat’ and other categories here. The gameplay was fun and engaging, kind of like a physical version of the old Diner Dash. This isn’t easy to do, and especially not in 36 hours.”
Read more from Nolan, a Microsoft "Distinguished Engineer"-turned-honorary-Cajun, here.
The talented team members:
BE CAMP VB included people who didn’t know each other, except through email intros Kolluru made.
Alla, Vamsee
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- Dept. of Veterans Affairs, Berlin, Conn.
Burriss, Christopher
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- InfiniEDGE Software Baton Rouge
Molnar, Peter
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- Clark Atlanta University Atlanta
Oriade, Banjo
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- Bethany College Lindsborg, Kan.
Rowe, Jackie
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- Southwest Louisiana AHEC, Lafayette
Tanory, Betty
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- Independent, Prairieville
Tanory, Robert
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- Amedisys Inc., Baton Rouge
Warner, Meredith
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Womans Surgical Specialty, Group Baton Rouge LA
Flying Fighting Mongooses were students from UL Lafayette (grad and undergrad)
Champagne, Jarad
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Deshotels, Luke
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Hefner, Daniel
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Higginbotham, Brady
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- VCExperts.com, Lafayette
LeDoux, Charles
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Miles, Craig
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Spear, Phil
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Pixel Dash (from Baton Rouge-based companies)
Caro, Dane
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Harvey, John
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Smith, Evan
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Tate, Jason
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New Old Schoolers won the best start-up potential award.
Ashworth-Sides, Luke
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- independent, Lafayette
Bain, Josh
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- independent, Lafayette
Jelveh, Reza
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- Flying seagull consulting, Hamburg, Germany (came because he wanted to develop a startup in Lafayette)
Miller, Bob
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- independent, Lafayette
Webb, Keven
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- independent, Lafayette
Woerner, Tyler
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- PixelBrush Studios, Lafayette
"There is no problem America can't invent its way out of," an enthusiastic Park told the participants at the opening of the competition, calling CajunCodeFest an "epic event."
"You came out of nowhere to make this happen," he continued. "This is why I'm so optimistic about America."
Let’s just hope Park took his excitement back to D.C. He certainly is in a position to make big things happen for Lafayette.
MAY 22 This post was written the day after the second line shooting in NOLA, by Brentin Mock. Mock is a friend of Deb "Big Red" Cotton, a blogger who was shot in the back and was seriously injured. It is a raw, emotional piece of writing, something the writer obviously felt he needed to get off his chest. But it raises questions that can't be easily dismissed, and might give some insight into where the source of these events truly is.
MAY 22 In this Baton Rouge Business Report post, Rolfe McCollister considers the privatization of bus service in Baton Rouge. After decades of under-funding, it is a mess, and although a tax (partially) passed last year, improvement hasn't happened yet. McCollister apparently feels it is time to let private business get in on the transit business.
MAY 22 This post on Bayou Buzz by Jeff Crouere urges the defeat of a bill that would grant modest pay increases over the next several years to the state's judges and clerks of court. The state is in no position to fund pay hikes, Crouere argues, with the pay increases costing a total of $9 million over several years. It sends the wrong message to the (proverbial) hard-working people of Louisiana, he says.
MAY 22 The Advocate reports here that State Treasurer John Kennedy is complaining about a meeting of the corporation that oversees the state's tobacco settlement. The Governor wanted it restructured, and he has some support, but not a lot. The corporation agreed with his plan, but Kennedy didn't, and it appears that the meeting was noticed in a manner completely different than that of all previous meetings. Kennedy's given to hyperbole, but in this case the fish don't smell too fresh.
MAY 22 In this Advocate story, Carencro Police Chief Carlos Stout says the recent federal indictment of a strip club owner is all wrong. The indictment alleges that drugs and prostitution went on with impunity because club staff made arrangements with "local" police. Stout says it never happened, and while his cops do work security in the parking lot, they're not allowed inside.
MAY 22 This amusing post in DIG Baton Rouge recounts an ad that ran on Craig's List recently; the advertiser was seeking tenants for a Beauregard Town house. He knew his market, and wrote an ad that the most ironical hipster couldn't resist. Apparently, he really did know his market, because the ad worked like a charm.
MAY 22 In this post in The Lens, Mark Moseley comments on the rhetoric Gov. Jindal employed in trying to save his tax "reform" package. One interesting point concerns Jindal's use of his brother, Nikesh, in a little story. Nikesh left Louisiana because of his inability to get a decent job, the story goes, but the story won't hold water: Nikesh lives in DC, which has an income tax level comparable to Louisiana, Moseley says. If income taxes caused the dismal situation, it should exist in DC too. Right?
MAY 22 This post by columnist John Maginnis traces the trajectory of the bill that would fund construction at community and technical colleges -- and bypass the Board of Regents and traditional higher ed funding mechanisms. Sure, it will bust the legislature's self-imposed debt limit, but some leges feel that there's more need (because there is more growth) in the community and technical college area than in the university area, he says.
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