2022 Hacks with Friends Pitches

Hacks with Friends 2022 - June 2-3, 2022

All pitches submitted for the 2022 Hacks with Friends are displayed below.

Index of Pitches

  • Pitch #1: What's the Status?
  • Pitch #2: Staff Recognition E-Postcard Service
  • Pitch #3: Withdrawn
  • Pitch #4: Analysis of Unutilized Scholarship funds
  • Pitch #5: Why Am I Sad? A Data Driven Analysis Framework
  • Pitch #6: No Worries Wolverines
  • Pitch #7: Enabling Fast Archiving of Massive Data
  • Pitch #8: ITS Support SlackBot
  • Pitch #9: Withdrawn
  • Pitch #10: Michigan App Design Jam
  • Pitch #11: Using Oracle Database with Microsoft Active Directory
  • Pitch #12: Blooming with MHealthy
  • Pitch #13: Hello, my name is [dynamic student intro video here]!
  • Pitch #14: Selfservice RDA owners and contact catalog
  • Pitch #15: Ready, Set, Tech
  • Pitch #16: Enhancing Student Success through Early Warning Alerts
  • Pitch #17 Withdrawn

  • Pitch #1: What's the Status?

    Pitch Leader(s): Jeanette testing

    Category: Academic and Business Administration

    Skills Needed: Business Analysts, Developers - Back-End, Project Managers, Presenter / Promoter / Cheerleader, Documentation Specialists

    Description:

    Check data warehouse status tables and report if stale (at the data set level?).

    Is there a set of data that has not been refreshed as scheduled?

    Maybe the process did not run at all or it failed.

    Send an email warning to those responsible so they are aware and can get the data refreshed.

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    Pitch #2: Staff Recognition E-Postcard Service

    Pitch Leader(s): Brandon

    Category: Mental Health and Well-being

    Skills Needed: Developers - Full-Stack, Developers - Front-End, Developers - Back-End, UX Designers, Presenter / Promoter / Cheerleader

    Description:

    Explore the possibility of duplicating the internal-to-ITS Spirit of Excellence E-Postcard service as a broader campus facing offering. The existing service provides ITS employees the capability of sending each other personalized notes of recognition for a job well done. Both sending and receiving these postcards is an uplifting experience and can really help make staff feel appreciated.

    Video Description

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    Pitch #3: Withdrawn

    Pitch withdrawn.

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    Pitch #4: Analysis of Unutilized Scholarship funds

    Pitch Leader(s): Srinivas Goud

    Category: Other

    Skills Needed: Business Analysts, Developers - TBD, Presenter / Promoter / Cheerleader, Data Scientists, Developers who can combine data from multiple sources using Denodo

    Description:

    I would like to see if we can collect the available Scholarship funds information, analyze the percentage of the utilization by students and find new ways to encourage students apply for the scholarships so that the funds do not go unutilized.

    Video Description

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    Pitch #5: Why Am I Sad? A Data Driven Analysis Framework

    Pitch Leader(s): Robin

    Category: Mental Health and Well-being

    Skills Needed: Developers - Full-Stack, Developers - Front-End, Developers - Middle-Tier, Developers - Back-End, UX Designers, UI Designers, Project Managers, IT Security Specialist, Data Scientists, Noting that I have a crew from ICPSR with devops/devs/design covered pretty well. We could probably use a data scientist or Project Manager to assist though.

    Description:

    There are many tools that exist for monitoring your mood and various single factors that may correlate to them. Sleep apps will ask you to rate your sleep. Fitness apps can monitor your exercise habits or food intake. Journals can be used for self reflection and expression. Often these single sources of data are blind to larger trends, intersections of multiple factors, or simply don't tie the data to your mood.

    This project seeks to build an automated framework for monitoring many different sources of data within our existing digital world and attempting to provide data driven answers to the question: "Why am I sad?" The goal of the project is to use data to analyze lifestyle trends and provide insight into factors that may have positive or negative impacts on subjective well-being so that users can seek greater joy in their lives.

    Video Description

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    Pitch #6: No Worries Wolverines

    Pitch Leader(s): Jeffrey

    Category: Mental Health and Well-being

    Skills Needed: UX Designers, UI Designers, Presenter / Promoter / Cheerleader, Documentation Specialists

    Description:

    Everyday we take chances with our physical safety. Whether we are commuting home from work or school in the dark, hiking or exercising off the grid, going on a blind date, or simply just living alone; if we don't show up where we planned to go, will anyone notice?

    No Worries Wolverines is a mobile checkin service app that monitors your check-ins and notifies your chosen contacts if you've stopped checking in. It doesn't share your phone data or location with your contacts. The people you choose will only be notified if you miss your checkins, and no one will be able to cyber-stalk your locations. Your privacy is still your privacy, but your no-shows will get noticed.

    Let's not let our fears stop us from living our dreams. Let No Worries Wolverines help you live a worry-less life.

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    Pitch #7: Enabling Fast Archiving of Massive Data

    Pitch Leader(s): Brock

    Category: Other

    Skills Needed: Data Scientists, Documentation Specialists, Bash or Python Scripting

    Description:

    We are facing a data explosion to address the lack of unlimited budgets for storage understanding what data can move to lower-cost archive systems or deleted completely is a powerful tool. Currently most methods are slow, limited in scale, or not portable.

    We propose the creation of tools and container around LLNL Grand Unified File Index (GUFI "goo-fee") a tool designed for billions of files and petabytes of data. We would create a github repo including the scripts and notes to generate reports like the following:

    • List of unique UIDs in the path
    • The total size and total count of files not touched in 6, 12, 24, 24+ months
    • The same as above but for a specific user

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    Pitch #8: ITS Support SlackBot

    Pitch Leader(s): James

    Category: Empowering Distributed Teams

    Skills Needed: Business Analysts, Systems Analysts, Developers - Full-Stack, Developers - Front-End, Developers - Middle-Tier, Developers - Back-End, Project Managers, Presenter / Promoter / Cheerleader, Documentation Specialists, Service Center Specialists, Desktop Support

    Description:

    Create a SlackBot that can be used to assist customers in finding answers to their support questions. Through a dialog on slack, direct customers to online documentation, TDx request forms, or slack channels where they can engage with experts. Build upon one of the cloud provider chat bot frameworks (we will evaluate in advance and bring a recommendation). Initial scope would be Virtualization and Cloud services (MCloud, MIServer, etc).

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    Pitch #9: Withdrawn

    Pitch withdrawn.

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    Pitch #10: Michigan App Design Jam

    Pitch Leader(s): Will

    Category: Other

    Skills Needed: Business Analysts, Developers - Mobile, UX Designers, UI Designers, Presenter / Promoter / Cheerleader, Anyone with ideas! No technical skills required.

    Description:

    Join members of the Michigan App team for a design jam! Bring ideas for new features that would help students, faculty, and staff navigate their day at U-M. We'll work together on concepts, designs, and prototypes that will then become part of the development roadmap for the app.

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    Pitch #11: Using Oracle Database with Microsoft Active Directory

    Pitch Leader(s): Kasthuri

    Category: Other

    Skills Needed: DBAs and Active Directory member from IAM team

    Description:

    We would like to Integrate Oracle Database with Microsoft Active Directory ( and Kerberos ) to allow centralized authentication and authorization of database users. This will reduce the overall burden of password management for thousands of database users spread across the campus.

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    Pitch #12: Blooming with MHealthy

    Pitch Leader(s): Sally

    Category: Mental Health and Well-being

    Skills Needed: Business Analysts, Systems Analysts, Developers - Mobile, Developers - Full-Stack, Developers - Front-End, Developers - Middle-Tier, Developers - Back-End, Developers - TBD, UX Designers, UI Designers, Project Managers, Presenter / Promoter / Cheerleader, IT Security Specialist, Data Scientists, Documentation Specialists, Service Center Specialists, Desktop Support

    Description:

    Many UofM Staff, Faculty and Students are unaware of the extensive library of materials and resources for ensuring our health and well-being MHealthy provides. We want to create a means to encourage everyone to participate and record activities that they have completed, working on all of the eight wellness petals. This could be to gamefy or create incentives for participation.

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    Pitch #13: Hello, my name is [dynamic student intro video here]!

    Pitch Leader(s): Angela

    Category: Other

    Skills Needed: Video Experts, Teaching & Learning Experts, Instructional Designers

    Description:

    Student introductions are a vital first step in fostering community within a classroom. Students who feel as though they are a part of a community are less likely to drop out and more likely to develop personal connections. Spending adequate time on class introductions should be a norm for all U-M classes, no matter the format of the class. Our proposal is to employ dynamic and easy-to-use tools to provide students with a fun and quick way to express themselves via video introductions and to provide instructors with a springboard for fostering creative expression regardless of discipline. At the end of the Hack, we aim to produce a prototype activity for U-M instructors to import to their Canvas courses. The prototype will be accessible to all learners and instructors, regardless of prior video production experience.

    Video Description

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    Pitch #14: Selfservice RDA owners and contact catalog

    Pitch Leader(s): Kranthi

    Category: Empowering Distributed Teams

    Skills Needed: Business Analysts, Systems Analysts, Developers - Full-Stack, Developers - Back-End, Developers - TBD, Access and Accounts rep.

    Description:

    Every year, ITS DBAs have atleast one project where they have to find the Remote Data Access (RDA) contacts to inform them of the changes happening. Currently this is a manual effort involving DBAs, Access and Account team, and Communications team. We would like to check if its feasible fetching the information of RDA contacts either by using Denodo or APIs and providing that list directly to Communications team without having to ask A&A team. Of course we will follow the data governance and security guidelines. Looking for help from anyone in ITS A&A. We might use Denodo, our Data Virtualization platform or APIs using API Directory for this hack. Everyone is welcome to join and help us improve the process.

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    Pitch #15: Ready, Set, Tech

    Pitch Leader(s): Stefanie

    Category: Empowering Distributed Teams

    Skills Needed: Business Analysts, Developers - TBD, UX Designers, UI Designers, Project Managers, Presenter / Promoter / Cheerleader, IT Security Specialist, Data Scientists, Documentation Specialists, Service Center Specialists, Desktop Support, Anyone with an understanding of what new faculty and staff members need to find and learn about IT when they join a U-M school, department, or team.

    Description:

    There is a wealth of technology resources, tips, and training opportunities available to new U-M employees. But, given U-M’s decentralized nature, that information can be hard to find and difficult for new employees to know which option or service to try first.

    This pitch seeks to simplify and improve upon the technical onboarding process for new employees by creating a central “Getting started with IT” resource that individuals and units can tailor to meet their needs. We would create a prototype of a resource that could provide a consistent understanding of university services and actionable, technology-related guidance over the first weeks and months of a new employees’ time at U-M.

    Is this a dynamic webpage? A canvas course for new employees? Something even better that can’t be described in a 150-word limit? Join this pitch team to help create a valuable resource for new and existing colleagues alike.

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    Pitch #16: Enhancing Student Success through Early Warning Alerts

    Pitch Leader(s): Cole

    Category: Academic and Business Administration

    Skills Needed: Business Analysts, Systems Analysts, Project Managers, Presenter / Promoter / Cheerleader, Documentation Specialists, Salesforce Developer/Administrator/Form Assembly Expertise

    Description:

    In August of 2021, UM-Dearborn rolled out Salesforce Student Success Hub with the goal of enhancing student support systems in order to improve retention and graduation rates. As part of this seamless and integrated platform, we would like to build out a method for faculty to submit early alerts for students. These early alerts serve as an important metric enabling staff to connect students with the resources and tools that they need to succeed. Getting closer to this 360° view of a student better ensures their success at UM-Dearborn.

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    Pitch #17 Withdrawn

    Pitch withdrawn.

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