APIIT students’ COVID Tracking App wins TADHack Global 2020 Asia Pacific Award

The winning team ‘501 Implementing’. From left: Arshad Aiyoob, Izzath Mohammed, Idrees Nafly, Shaakira Mubarak and Sidra Mowlana

Team ‘501 Implementing’ representing APIIT, a leading private higher education institute in Sri Lanka, became one of the two teams winning the prize for the Asia-Pacific region at the world’s largest telco application development hackathon – TADHack Global 2020.  

A total of eight teams qualified for global judging to represent Sri Lanka at the event which connected teams from over 20 cities in the world to an overnight hacking marathon on 10 and 11 October. The two winning teams of the Asia-Pacific region received a share of a $ 1,000 prize pot.

The winning team, ‘501 Implementing’, comprised of Arshad Aiyoob, Idrees Nafly, Izzath Mohammed, Shaakira Mubarak and Sidra Mowlana. 

The students who are all part of the School of Computing at APIIT, developed a tracking system named COVID-Zero which is a virtual assistant alerting users with news updates via SMS, providing the closest locations to get a PCR test done, determining if one is symptomatic and comes with an AI-based call agent to assist callers. 

Commenting on the win, APIIT Head of the School of Computing Prof. Priyantha Kumarawadu said: “I extend my warmest congratulations to our students for winning the Asia Pacific (APAC) prize of this year’s TADHack Global Competition. 

“At APIIT, we encourage creativity, innovation and research within our communities, providing opportunity for our students to showcase their true potential to be future leaders. Winning this award showcases not only our students’ technical abilities, but also their flexibility, adaptability and ability to identify and provide a creative solution within a stipulated time frame under tight deadlines.” 

Team ‘501 Implementing’ was exultant at being placed regional winners in TADHACK2020. “We are proud of this globally recognised achievement. The competition posed many challenges as we were not just competing locally but also with teams around the world. The core challenge was integrating APIs and coming up with a web or mobile based solution.  

“As students following the Software Engineering and Computer Networks and Security degree at APIIT, we were provided with a strong academic and practical foundation, therefore we were able to apply those concepts to our solution and successfully integrate it with our system,” the team members said.

“Working within a stipulated time frame of merely 24 hours during the competition taught us many lessons such as navigating through the varied working styles of each individual in the team through effective communication, time management and the importance of every member in the team. To be chosen winners in the Asia-Pacific Region in which only three teams were winners is a great achievement for us as a team representing APIIT and our motherland,” they added.  

Initiated in 2013 as an effort to build an eco-system focused on telecom application development, TADHACK is an annually organised hackathon for developers.