INDReporter

INNOV8's CajunCodeFest to award 25 grand

by Leslie Turk

Ramesh Kolluru, director of UL's Center for Business and Information Technologies, says while Louisiana is unique in its cuisine, music and culture, it's what it has in common with the rest of the country - childhood obesity - that needs our attention. Twenty-five grand should do the trick.

Ending childhood obesity is the mission of CajunCodeFest, an INNOV8 Lafayette event scheduled for Friday and Saturday, April 27-28, at the Picard Center, Abdalla Hall and LITE on the UL Lafayette Research Park campus. Offering a grand prize of $25,000, the event aims to attract software designers and engineers, undergraduate/graduate students, health care policy leaders, hospital administrators, wellness/nutrition experts, researchers and entrepreneurs who all have a stake in improving kids' health care.

UL's Ramesh Kolluru

The Center for Business and Information Technologies at UL Lafayette is partnering with U.S. Health and Human Services, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, FiberCorps and the private sector on the competition, says Ramesh Kolluru, director of the CBIT. He says the two-day coding competition is bringing more than 175 thinkers from across the nation to Lafayette to transform health care data into innovative technology solutions that address childhood obesity.

Public sector leaders attending include Todd Park, who was recently appointed chief technology officer of the U.S. by President Obama, and Bruce Greenstein, secretary of the Louisiana DHH. "The CajunCodeFest is inspired by Todd and Bruce who both envision that opening up health care data will stimulate innovative solutions," Kolluru says. Park helped create healthdata.gov, a publicly accessible health data website, in addition to hosting code-a-thons like CajunCodeFest across the nation.

In the past 1.5 years, code-a-thons resulted in more than 50 products, including apps and websites to help patients locate doctors and better manage medications, and launched startups that commercialize those technologies. "We want some of that in Lafayette," Kolluru says. Joining CajunCodeFest from the private sector are Jay Walker, founder of Priceline.com and curator of TEDMED, Sean Nolan from Microsoft, Jose Ramos from Northrop Grumman, and Lafayette native Jared Quoyeser from Intel Corporation.

These leaders will serve as speakers and judges. Competing teams will have just over 24 hours to analyze data, brainstorm ideas and create digital prototypes. The stakes are high: the winning team will receive $25,000 and entry to the invite-only U.S. Health Datapalooza competition.

"The stakes are even higher for the nation's children," Kolluru says. One in three kids between the ages of 2-19 is overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Direct medical costs for treating overweight and obese children are estimated at $3 billion per year.

Get more info here and follow the Twitter buzz at #CajunCodeFest.

INNOV8 Lafayette is an eight-day project, April 22-29 (overlapping Festival International), with a mission to brand Lafayette's creative economy. View the full schedule here.

Read more about CajunCodeFest and the more than 40 other exciting INNOV8 events in Wednesday's Independent.