Year 13 Boys win Allstate XtheTxt Competition
Friends’ School Year 13 students (Ryan Shanks, Stephen Gibson, Cameron O’Hare, Alex Taylor) were awarded 1st place in the Allstate sponsored, XtheTXT ‘App’ design competition, run in conjunction with PSNI and DOENI.
This annual competition is open to all students aged between 15-22 from secondary schools, colleges and universities from across Northern Ireland. With over 29 teams competing in the competition this year, the young FSL ‘app’ designers faced tough competition but in the end triumphed with a design that was, in the words of the judges, both “interactive and informative”. All four students are hoping to pursue a Computer Science related course at university at the end of their school studies.
The App is currently being professionally developed by the team of programmers within Allstate and will be used as part of a spearhead campaign to increase awareness of the dangers of texting while driving. The ‘App’ will be available free for download towards the end of 2015 on both the Apple App Store and Google Play.
At the awards ceremony students were provided with some training on how to develop App from the lead ‘App’ developer in Allstate and were also given a tour of Allstates start-of-the-art ‘command centre’ which enables the company to monitor and monitor their global IT systems. Students were also treated to a buffet lunch and were given cinema tickets. The students are seen here being presented with a cheque for £500 for the school.
