1 December 2006

Dundee students say "Yahoo!"

Computing students at the University of Dundee have become the first in the UK to be offered the chance to take part in internet giant Yahoo!'s legendary "Hack Days", which challenge programmers to come up with innovative web applications

Yahoo! frequently challenges the company's own employees to develop new ideas on the "Hack Days", when normal duties are suspended in favour of the quest to find new creative avenues. This is the first time that students in the UK have been invited to participate in a Yahoo! Hack Day

A group of 3rd-year students from the School of Computing yesterday (November 30th) presented their projects to the Yahoo! team. Among the ideas developed by the students were a desktop tidy, a source for worldwide cinema charts, and a daily news compiler.

"This has been a fantastic challenge for our students," said lecturer Andy Cobley, who teaches the 3rd-year students taking on the Yahoo! task.

"They were buzzing at the chance to work on these projects and they came up with some really good ideas, and they really impressed the the Yahoo! team who came to judge the task."

The link with Yahoo! was established through Murray Rowan who completed a post graduate degree in Dundee and is now Head of Web Development, Yahoo! Europe.

"Yahoo!, decided that the University of Dundee School of Computing was a great choice for this initiative due to their focus on Web Standards, particularly Accessibility," said Murray. "They share a lot of the same values as us that they have passed onto their students."

"The Hack Days give developers an opportunity to shine within the organization and are great fun for everyone involved. Seniority is irrelevant on Hack Days - everyone is judged on their merits on the day."

"Hack Days also serve a serious purpose in helping to identify innovative ideas to take our products and services to the next level. The students at Dundee applied their unique perspectives on our products and services and they have come up with some great ideas."

The winning students were Stephen Galbraith and Philip ThompsoN, who developed an application that links Yahoo! Messenger with the popular photo website Flickr.

As part of their prize they are being given the chance to further links with Yahoo! by being invited for an interview for an internship with the company. Further prizes included inscribed MP3 players and web development material.

NOTES TO EDITORS

Pic attached shows winning students Philip Thompson (left) and Stephen Galbraith (right)

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Roddy Isles
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University of Dundee
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E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk