Vietnamese students win Google’s technology challenge with Shareapy app
Every year, hundreds of universities from 60 countries all over the world participate in Google’s Developer Student Clubs Solution Challenge, where students devise creative solutions in response to community problems using Google technologies.
Out of over 800 groups of student contestants this year, Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT) students became one of the 10 winning teams with a mobile app promoting mental health called Shareapy.
The Shareapy mobile app
Launched by Google Developer Student Clubs, the Solution Challenge is an annual contest that invites university students from all over the world to devise solutions for everyday problems.
Every solution is graded on the scale of 100 based on 3 criteria: Impact (50%), Technology (40%), and Room for Improvement (10%).
One winning app, Shareapy, is an application that connects people from all walks of life who share similar problems and encourage them to openly express their feelings. In its online interactive community, they are welcomed to unleash their emotions and stress without reservations or judgement, according to Events with Google.
Image credit: HCMUT
The other winning teams include those from the US, Germany, South Korea, Indonesia, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, India, and Ghana.
Shareapy will be introduced at the Virtual Demo Day online event in August, along with other solutions, such as the emergency response assistance app from the Ghana team and Capstone – a plagiarism-combating app from the Zimbabwe team.
The team encountered challenges due to COVID-19
The HCMUT team has 4 members, including Vo Ngoc Khanh Linh, Tran Lam Bao Khang (2nd-year students at the School of Industrial Management), Nguyen Dang Huy (a 3rd-year student at the Faculty of Computer Science & Engineering), and Nguyen Thanh Nhan (2nd-year student at the Faculty of Computer Science & Engineering).
They form a Developer Student Club, that like others around the world, uses Google Developer technologies to create solutions for their local communities.
Image credit: HCMUT
The team shared that they encountered numerous difficulties during the contest as it took place during the COVID-19 outbreak. Not being able to meet one another face to face, the team had to resort to Figma and Google Meet meeting platforms to keep their communication and app development going. Additionally, they could not test the app on users due to social distancing measures in Vietnam.
However, after 4 months of hard work, the team successfully developed the app and became one of the winning teams this year.
Taking great pride in the team’s achievements, Professor Pham Tran Vu, the Head of Computer Science and Engineering of HCMUT, shared, “We always encourage our students to join extracurricular activities involving science and technology, especially international contests. It will help broaden their horizons and access the most state-of-the-art technologies. Our team’s achievement demonstrates our success in developing our training curriculum according to international standards.”
Students during a class at HCMUT
Image credit: HCMUT
Vietnamese win a Google technology contest with Shareapy app
In everyday life, we cannot avoid running into difficulties every once in a while. It’s not always easy to share our thoughts with the people around us, and so many of us choose to bury our emotions until they pile up.
We can still release our emotions and express our feelings in a healthy way, and have people who share similar problems who won’t judge or make us feel abnormal listen to them. With Shareapy, you can be yourself and have sympathy from people you’ve never met.
The app is not available on the Google App Store just yet, but if you’re keen to know more about the app’s features, check out the upcoming official showcase of the app at Virtual Demo Day at the end of August 2020. Details will be released soon on Google Events.
Also check out:
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- Vietnamese students come up with creative anti-COVID-19 solutions
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- Increased school work for Vietnamese students after COVID-19
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Cover image adapted from: HCMUT
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