Elon University / Today at Elon / Elon Women in STEM team wins Best Fintech Hack at Pearl Hacks 2023

Eight Elon students participated in Pearl Hack’s 2023 hackathon at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 10-12. February, with a group winning Best Fintech Hack for their project.

Anna Mitchell ’23, Sreyrath Poeun ’23, Anahy Felipe de la Cruz ’24 and Bridgette Mercier ’24 used data from Poeun’s MKT 3110 Principles of Marketing Course to create a program to help financial institutions better predict whether clients would accept specific loan offers . Their project included a front-end user interface for clients to enter information and a back-end code that used machine learning and data to deliver performance predictions to financial institutions.

Representatives of Capital One, a sponsor of Pearl Hacks, awarded the project Best Fintech Hack. Pearl Hacks is a hackathon for women and gender nonconforming individuals in technology held annually since 2015. Hundreds attend the event annually. Hackathons bring together teams of tech-savvy people to solve problems using data and coding.

Other Elon students who attended were Maddie Volchko ’23, Sophie Halish ’23, Kai Indeglia ’26 and Bonnie Baffo-Bonnie ’24. All eight students are members of Elon Women in STEM, a pilot program aimed at recruiting and retaining women and female-identifying students in STEM fields.

Elon Women in STEM is focused on building community among female students and connecting them to professional development opportunities that will lead to successful STEM careers. The program is a partnership between Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Student Professional Development Center and Accelerate Success. The program is in its first year and includes peer mentoring, conversations with and presentations by leading female STEM professionals, networking opportunities and social activities.

Mitchell, a computer science and statistics double major, said her first hackathon made her interested in participating more. While at Pearl Hacks, she and other Elon students attended informational sessions on coding, web design and other technologies in addition to completing their projects. Presenting her project to judges and other teams was the aspect she found most valuable.

“When someone came to our table, we walked them through our project and explained how the front-end and back-end worked. Hearing their feedback and being grilled with questions was good professional practice for explaining and justifying your work to different groups of people, Mitchell said.

It was also Poeun’s first hackathon. A finance and statistics double major, she enjoyed the challenge and freedom offered by the broad project categories, which allowed her team to be creative in how they approached the project.

“Data analytics is my passion,” Poeun said. “I love working with a bunch of numbers that don’t make sense and using machine learning to make sense of them. Understanding the jumble of big data is powerful.”

Both said their time with Elon Women in STEM has been well spent and they have made new connections and friends through the program.

“Elon Women in STEM has created a community that would not otherwise exist,” Mitchell said. “We have student clubs, but they have a different atmosphere. This creates community through mentor-mentee relationships and builds our self-confidence through sessions aimed at our professional development, such as interview skills, practice for negotiations and handling situations in the workplace. It is really valuable and good information for us to have.”