RJI Student Competition timeline: From concept to winner in 7 months

Twelve months ago Apple released the Apple Watch, the company’s first new product category since the iPad and the first ever with Tim Cook at the helm. In recent weeks, much hullabaloo has been written expressing disappointment and declaring the smartwatch technology to be a flop. However, in its first year the Apple Watch quickly ascended to a significant lead of smartwatch market share (52 percent) and sold twice as well as the iPhone in its debut year.

While the technology has provided fertile ground for “flop or not” debate, a group of University of Missouri students opted to leave the sidelines and contribute to the Watch ecosystem. For the past seven months student teams have participated in the ninth annual RJI Student Competition, challenged with developing a viable media-themed application for the Apple Watch.

The competition winners were announced this week at the 2016 RJI Tech Showcase.

To help highlight key milestones from the entire months-long journey, MU convergence journalism students Jessie Martin, Marie Bowman, Maria DiBianca and Sang Yoon Jeong produced the following multimedia timeline that will whisk you across the student competition almost as if you were using Time Travel on your digital crown.

Victor Hernandez  
   
Nonresidential fellow

Victor Hernandez devoted eight months to exploring the impact of wearable technology on newsrooms as a 2015-2016 RJI Fellow.