Jonathan Kuc, Miguel Rios, Denis Alekhin, Larissa Ho, and Prem Bassi, represented their school extremely well this past weekend, winning multiple awards at Washington State University’s Imagine Tomorrow competition.  They providing an added level of competitiveness to the event held annually in Eastern Washington.  The project is a carbon footprint calculator app that provides the user with their carbon footprint given their house utility bill costs. It also gives the user suggestions on ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

Jonathan, Miguel, and Denis initially started the project back in the fall of 2012, as part of their school science fair project. All three students are very much interested in both computer programming as well as in current environmental issues. In order to have their app stand out from others that have been created, they deliberately had it based on a person’s utility bills, as opposed to the units of electricity that they might use, since the average person would not readily know the latter. The original group won first place in the school science fair, and was selected as one of the school’s eight teams to compete at Imagine Tomorrow.

In preparing for Imagine Tomorrow, Jonathan, Miguel, and Denis advertised two positions for other students in their class to join their group. They were looking to get more help with the presentation and marketing of their product. Larissa and Prem applied to and were accepted by the original team, and have been collaborating with the original group members since late March.

The group’s presentation at Imagine Tomorrow was seamless and definitely impressed the judges. They won third place in their category of “Design,” and also won the title of “Most Likely to Succeed in the Marketplace.” As part of the third place award, each group member will receive $500 in cash, and TAF Academy will receive $1,500.

The three original group members have already put the app in the market, and have started promoting their product. They have piloted the app through friends and family, have sought the feedback of various professionals in the computer science field, and are continuing to refine their product and the website for it. They hope to eventually have the app available to iphone users (currently it’s only available to android users) and market it on the app store. More information on this group and their project can be found at http://bit.ly/carbonfootprintcal

Congratulations to the following 7th graders for having their works published by POETIC POWER, CREATIVE COMMUNICATION.  Seven environmental essays and 4 poetic entries were accepted.  Good work TAF Tigers!

May 15^this the Seattle Foundations online Day of Giving, commonly known as Give BIG! TAF along with 1,400 local nonprofits are participating this year. Gifts given to TAF through the Seattle Foundation website will be matched both by the Seattle Foundation and an anonymous TAF donor. Give BIG is an important time to raise awareness about TAFs work in our community. All donations go directly toward supporting TechStart, STEM Up and TAF Academy. Please share this community giving event with your friends, colleagues and community. Every gift counts!

We thank you for your generosity!