UWI students more equipped in building Apps

Developers from Croatia and Barbados, taught the students how to build a mobile App which was an extension of the basic knowledge in programming that the students usually receive. From this, the students received “hands on” experience with industry professionals with building customer facing apps that they can use even after they leave university to start their own businesses. 

 

Maurice Beckles, IT Technician for the Faculty of Science and Technology noted that this was an important step in the economy of Barbados. “This development means a lot for Barbados because right now we are always talking about entrepreneurship and bringing in foreign exchange and one of the areas that I think we’ve been missing is looking at the smaller ways to being in foreign exchange which is by individual entrepreneurs bringing clients from overseas… There is software that allows you to work remotely; so you can sit in your home and build websites and Apps and build software for clients overseas and because of the foreign exchange difference, we can do it slightly cheaper than other places,” stated Beckles. 

 

Beckles went on to say that the students are doing extremely well and the proof of this can be seen on Friday at 2 p.m. when their showcase comes off. Acknowledging that many Apps fail Beckles disclosed that the class has been looking at the business development side of App building and doing market research, collecting data and being able to find the right niche to place your app where they will most likely be successful. 

 

The developers too were very impressed by the work being done by the students. Mike Miklavie, Director of ExtensionEngine.org stated, “Our goal was to teach the students how to build mobile Apps in a week and laying the foundational skills that they would need to do such…it has been an unbelievable experience so far, the students beat us here this morning and they were the ones to shut the place down, they worked extremely hard this week…their learning ability is ‘off the charts’, there is an extreme amount of potential in the room and I am just really excited about what they will show.”

 

While Miklavie pointed out that each group working on an App included a female, he expressed the need to see more females in the field, both locally and abroad. The students too found the experience a highly educational one. One female student, Shanice Waterman, stated that the workshop put on by UWI in collaboration with extensionengine.org has helped her to hone her skills in App building in an advanced way as they tackle real-world problems. 

 

Without saying too much, Beckles disclosed that there are some apps in the transportation sector, some looking at efficient business strategies and other are in the fields of education and entertainment. There are 6 groups and each group is working on an App in a different sector.