Code.org Mobile Education App
Started:
Won 1st place in the 2023 McKinsey Digital Hackathon, in collaboration with Code.org. The challenge: bring coding education to students in developing countries, where mobile devices are far more accessible than laptops or desktops — but keyboards and IDEs are limited or absent.
Team: Mihir Dhamankar (Carnegie Mellon), Joanna Kennedy (MIT/Harvard), Max Petruzzi (MIT), and Weizhe Zhao (Cornell)
Solution
Built a mobile app that gives students and teachers real-time feedback on verbal explanations of coding concepts. Using the OpenAI and YouTube APIs, the platform generates and analyzes transcripts of submitted videos for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Key features:
- Teachers can create assignments and view student submissions with aggregated metrics
- Identifies common points of confusion across the class
- Teachers can also receive feedback on their own explanations — useful since many teachers in developing countries come from non-CS backgrounds
The entire project was built in 24 hours. After winning, the team was invited to present again to Code.org leadership including CEO Hadi Partovi.
Awards
- 1st Place — 2023 McKinsey Digital Hackathon
Full details and code: GitHub