DeKalb Students Honored At All-Night Code-A-Thon

DECATUR, GA — Students from DeKalb County were among those taking top honors recently at an all-night code-a-thon designed to hone skills they'll need to design next trending mobile app, video game or Web application.

CodeDay Atlanta was held Saturday and Sunday at LexisNexis Risk Solutions in Alpharetta. The 24-hour event was part of a national event. Attending from DeKalb County were Christopher Ballenger (DeKalb Early College Academy) and Alexandra Hamilton, Lia Walker and Janhiya Reid, all of Lithonia High School.

Ballenger was named a CodeDay Youth Leader and Hamilton and Walker were part of the team that won Best In Class — Game for their creation, Gentleman's Curse.

More than 50 students of varying experience levels and backgrounds participated in the event, which offered workshops and a chance to collaborate on building Web applications, mobile apps and video games. Students pitched ideas and chose projects and team members on Saturday afternon.

The teams then worked for 24 hours to bring their ideas to life. Throughout the event, CodeDay staff hosted fun activities like karaoke and "no hands" programming contests. On Sunday morning, the students presented their final projects to judges.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions has sponsored CodeDay Atlanta for five years in a row in an ongoing effort to foster technology innovation in Atlanta.

"CodeDay offers any student with an interest in programming the opportunity to learn how to create cool video games and apps," said Yun Chen, senior director of engineering at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. "The event helps students cultivate and develop their interest in coding, regardless of their experience level with computer science. By supporting CodeDay, companies such as LexisNexis Risk Solutions are helping to promote technology education in their local communities, and may even get the chance to meet students that they'll want to hire in a few years."

Photo courtesy LexisNexis Risk Solutions