Computer Science Students won top place at Morgan Stanley 2022 Hackathon

Vanier College is proud to announce that a Vanier team of Computer Science students won First Place at the Morgan Stanley Hackathon held in November, 2022 at the Palais des congrès. Indeed, Kaolin Stacey, Jeffrey Juan Grospe, Md Saqliyan Islam, Phuc Nguyen, Amanda De Rosa and Tommy Rivard, all second-year Computer Science students, earned the top spot at this prestigious event.

“This was quite an achievement given it was the first time Vanier participated in this challenging university-level computer science competition,” says computer science teacher Alex Steinheuser Vilvert. “When I asked them to participate, many thought they were not good enough compared to university students. But after winning, their eyes have grown brighter and their performance in class has changed. Now they know they are capable, they know they are receiving a good education at Vanier because they were able to compare themselves to other institutions. Most importantly they have “contaminated” and inspired other students to push and improve.”

The Morgan Stanley Hackathon, entitled “Code to Give Hackathon”, was an event aimed at giving event participants the opportunity to help solve some of the real technological problems that non-profit organizations must deal with. Over a 3-day period, 200 college and university students developed prototypes to solve key problems faced by two specific non-profit groups: Earth Day Canada and Digital Moment. At the finale, their innovative solutions were presented, and one winning prototype was selected for each non-profit.

The victory was Vanier’s when Earth Day Canada selected the Vanier team’s web-app prototype aimed at helping fight food waste by connecting farmers, volunteers and food banks, key elements in driving the organization’s essential community work. Morgan Stanley will take the prototypes and deliver finished products to each non-profit in 2023.

In addition to a $500 prize to each member of the winning team, Morgan Stanley also offered internship interviews to winning team members, and Computer Science student Jeffrey Juan Grospe was chosen to begin a paid internship with Morgan Stanley in May. This is a wonderful opportunity since Morgan Stanley Montréal is one of the company’s most prominent technology hubs in the world with more than 1,200 IT professionals and engineers working in a variety of areas including application and software development, cloud engineering, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence.

Congratulations to our very deserving Computer Science students.