Forney High School Students Win Verizon's National Mobile App Design Competition

FORNEY, Texas, March 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- A team of high school students from Forney High School are winners of a national competition to develop mobile applications that address a need or problem in their school. Their "One|Place" app concept is one of the 10 winning designs. The app offers students, faculty and the community one location to find details about upcoming school and community events. 

The competition, the Verizon Innovative App Challenge, was created by the Verizon Foundation in partnership with the Technology Student Association to help boost student engagement and interest in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. The students were asked to use their STEM skills to design app concepts that provided real-world solutions for issues in their communities or schools.     

The Forney "One|Place" team will now work on bringing their concepts to market, with professional support and training from Verizon employees and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. The final product will be made available for download from Google's Play Store. In addition, Forney High School will receive a $10,000 Verizon Foundation grant to advance STEM education at their school, and each team member will receive the new Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, courtesy of Samsung Mobile.

"The students are extremely excited and honored that their app design was chosen as one of the national winners in Verizon's Innovative App Challenge," said Wesley Benjamin, Project Lead the Way™ Engineering Instructor for Forney High School.  "The entire process has been an invaluable experience for them. We are very proud of their dedication and hard work. We can't wait to see their design come to life for all of the students, parents and staff of Forney ISD!"

More than 470 student teams from across the country submitted concepts for the Verizon Innovative App Challenge.  The Forney team consisted of 5 students and were guided by a faculty adviser, Wesley Benjamin.  Students also received tutorials from Verizon's Innovation Center engineers, who created instructional videos on app design and development.  The submissions were housed on the Innovation Portal of Project Lead The Way, a leading provider of rigorous and innovative STEM education programs used in middle and high schools across the U.S. 

In working with the MIT Media Lab to develop their winning app, and make it available for download from Google's Play Store, the students will learn how to use the MIT App Inventor tool and the basics of coding. If the students build their app by June 7, they will be invited to present it at the National Technology Student Association Conference in Orlando, Fla. later that month.

The 10 winning app designs were selected by a panel of STEM and industry experts from the Verizon Innovation Center, MIT Media Lab, Samsung Mobile, the New York Hall of Science, the National Academy Foundation, National Geographic, the International Reading Association and the American Association of the Advancement of Science. Entries were judged based on their clear identification of a need or problem in a school or community; originality; creativity; the viability of the concept; and the applicability of STEM principles and practices.

Another Verizon Innovative App Challenge will be held in the fall.

The Verizon Foundation is focused on accelerating social change by using the company's innovative technology to help solve pressing problems in education, healthcare and energy management. Since 2000, the Verizon Foundation has invested more than half a billion dollars to improve the communities where Verizon employees work and live. Verizon's employees are generous with their donations and their time, having logged more than 6.65 million hours of service to make a positive difference in their communities. For more information about Verizon's philanthropic work, visit www.verizonfoundation.org; or for regular updates, visit the Foundation on Facebook (www.facebook.com/verizonfoundation) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/verizongiving).

Samsung and Galaxy Note are registered trademarks of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ), headquartered in New York, is a global leader in delivering broadband and other wireless and wireline communications services to consumer, business, government and wholesale customers.  Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, with more than 98 million retail connections nationwide.  Verizon also provides converged communications, information and entertainment services over America's most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers integrated business solutions to customers in more than 150 countries, including all of the Fortune 500.  A Dow 30 company with nearly $116 billion in 2012 revenues, Verizon employs a diverse workforce of 183,400.  For more information, visit www.verizon.com.

VERIZON'S ONLINE NEWS CENTER: Verizon news releases, executive speeches and biographies, media contacts, high-quality video and images, and other information are available at Verizon's News Center on the World Wide Web at www.verizon.com/news. To receive news releases by email, visit the News Center and register for customized automatic delivery of Verizon news releases.

SOURCE Verizon Communications Inc.

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