Apps for reporting incidents, facilitating conversation made in Penn State hackathon

A recent 24-hour student-run hackathon at The Pennsylvania State University yielded new apps, the university’s paper recently reported.

The biannual event led one student to create an app called Social Lens, which analyzes facial features to determine the emotional state of someone during a conversation. The app’s developer said the idea came from a friend who is “on the spectrum” and was not skilled at reading social cues or knowing when to stop talking.

Another student created Defy, a live-captioning service designed to help deaf and hearing-impaired users keep up with conversations in real time. By uploading voice samples, the tool can more easily identify and label speakers.

The hackathon’s winning app was Veriti, created by a student named Darsh Tejusinghani. The app allows users, particularly those in the United Arab Emirates, to anonymously report incidents and share them with others who are using the app in the area. The app reportedly uses AI to attempt to validate the reports.