KCP&L sponsored a special graduate student competition held April 17, 2018 at Northwest Missouri State University. Sixteen students were selected from the School of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) to compete in the prestigious competition. Teams included students earning their M.S. in Information Systems (MS IS) and students earning their M.S. in Applied Computer Science (MS ACS). Each interdisciplinary team designed a safety reporting application for tracking incidents, accidents, and injuries in accordance with the provided system requirements specification. Teams had two hours to sketch the application, develop an entity-relationship diagram, address security issues, and create network and activity diagrams. The event was coordinated by Jory Galloway, Web Application Programmer at KCP&L, hosted by Dr. Joni Adkins, Associate Professor and MS IS Program Coordinator, and supported by CSIS faculty members, as well as Dr. Greg Haddock, Associate Provost of Graduate Studies, and Dr. Jamie Hooyman, Provost. Each team presented their designs to a four-member judging panel of KCP&L professionals including Jory Galloway, Jordan Kilmer, Michael Lake, and Seth Walz. Contests were honored with an award dinner in the First Ladies Dining Room sponsored by KCP&L.

First place and a $500 prize went to the Visual Square team of Aditya Srimat Tirumala Pallerlamudi (MS ACS), Shiva Teja Miyapuram (MS ACS), Sravanthi Modali (MS ACS), and Tejaswi Uppalapati (MS IS), pictured above with Dr. Carol Spradling, Director of the School of Computer Science and Information Systems.

Second place and $300 prize: Team Elite with Sandeep Kumar Dara (MS ACS), Neeraja Garigipati (MS ACS), Gopi Sai Krishna Lemati (MS ACS), and Manoj Munjeti (MS IS).

Honorable mention and $100 prize: The Explorers with Harish Bondalapati (MS ACS), Haritha Kurla (MS ACS), Naseef Shamin (MS IS), and Tashi Sherpa (MS IS).

Honorable mention and $100 prize: Creative Crew with Vineeth Agarwal (MS ACS), Abhijeet Agrawal (MS ACS), Preethi Sarugari (MS ACS), Gary Zhao (MS IS)

Congratulations to the winners and many thanks to KCP&L for sponsoring the event!