Melissa for Education was thrilled to sponsor and participate at LA Hacks, one of Southern California’s premier collegiate datathons. Hosted at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion from April 25–27, 2025, the event brought together hundreds of talented students for a weekend of innovation, collaboration and coding.
Melissa showed up on Day 1, April 25, to engage with participants. We were excited to meet so many bright student developers eager to learn more about Melissa’s data quality tools. Our table was a hit! Students lined up to snag Melissa hats, tote bags, notebooks and water bottles. Students were also invited to sign up for our Education Portal, giving them free access to data APIs, credits and learning resources designed to power their future projects.
In our ongoing commitment to fostering data excellence, Melissa for Education hosted a special data challenge at LA Hacks: "The Traveling Student Problem."
Given the Melissa UCLA dataset on a map, participants were tasked with creating proximity-based solutions that addressed real-world community problems. Using Melissa’s powerful APIs, students developed innovative applications to identify optimized and nearest relevant locations, and took into account different layers of complexity and filtering criteria.
We were blown away by the creativity and technical skills shown by the competitors. A special congratulations goes to this year’s winning team, Bandaid Maps, composed of Krishna Ram Saravanakumar, Harish Namasivayam, Govind Kurapati and BP Gayathri Ananya! Bandaid Maps is a real-time, AI-powered healthcare navigation tool that assesses your emergency preparedness based on your current location. Using Melissa location data, Gemini AI and real-time location analysis, the app calculates a personalized Health Readiness Score (0-100) and generates a custom emergency action plan. Built with FastAPI, React and Google Generative AI (Gemini Pro), Bandaid Maps features an interactive map showing nearby healthcare locations, AI-generated emergency plans, and an optional Emergency Mode for 24/7 service filtering. This project stood out for its real-world impact, helping students, travelers and residents understand their healthcare accessibility before emergencies strike.
Winners received an exciting prize package, including:
View all our challenge submissions here!
Melissa for Education is proud to support emerging tech talent and empower students with real-world data solutions. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our table, participated in the challenge, and made LA Hacks 2025 an unforgettable experience. We look forward to seeing where your data journeys take you next!
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