More than 50 Arkansas students who have spent time in their computer science classes developing mobile apps will showcase the results Thursday at the Arkansas Apps for Good Festival.
The state's fourth annual event will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub in North Little Rock. An expo will be from noon to 1 p.m. to allow community members to view the students' work.
Students will give elevator pitches, hands-on demonstrations and presentations, and they will display posters and backboards for their projects.
The festival is an opportunity for each of the teams to celebrate their work.
"By design, this is not a competition. It's purely festive. We want them to be proud of their accomplishments for this year," said Daniel Moix, director of Coding Arkansas' Future, which organizes the event each year.
Coding Arkansas' Future is an initiative of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts in Hot Springs. It provides training to new computer science teachers in an effort to enhance computer science education.
Students were tasked with finding a problem they wanted to solve and applying new skills to make a real-life app, exploring the full product-development cycle from concept to coding to launch, an announcement about Thursday's event said.
Apps for Good started in the United Kingdom as an education technology charity. The organization works alongside educators to develop a free, flexible course framework that infuses digital learning with teamwork, creativity and entrepreneurship.
Metro on 04/17/2019