Finalists in Android competition also tour Hearst's KMBC-TV

By Mike McKean, Keith Politte on February 1, 2011 1 Comment Experiments

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Sprint, one of the nation's largest wireless telecommunications providers, hosted 24 journalism, computer science and business students at its world headquarters in suburban Kansas City on February 15th. The students are members of the five finalist teams taking part in the 2011 RJI Student Competition.

The teams are building Android mobile apps for Hearst Innovation in response to challenges generated across the company's newspapers, magazines and television stations.

During the daylong briefing, the students met with Sprint engineers and business executives who shared the company's mobile strategies, demonstrated some of their next-generation technologies and services, and offered technical support for the teams.

Tom McGranaghan describes Sprint’s mobile strategies to RJI finalist teams.

Sprint is one of three technology leaders partnering this year with RJI and Hearst. Google and Adobe are also helping the student teams turn their visions into working Android applications.

Following the Sprint briefing, the student finalists toured Hearst-owned KMBC-TV, the ABC affiliate for the greater Kansas City area. KMBC Digital Media Manager Brian Foster showed them the inner workings of the newsroom and led a substantive conversation about how to use mobile technology, web analytics and social media to better engage with the community.

For more information contact Mike McKean, Director of the RJI Futures Lab, mckeanml@rjionline.org, 573.882.3434, or Keith Politte, Manager of RJI's Technology Testing Center, polittek@rjionline.org, 573.882.9646.