The Penn Stater Magazine

Student App Makes Shopping Safer

March 15, 2011 at 3:50 pm Mary Murphy Leave a comment

Hiestand (left) with Governor Tom Corbett and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Photo courtesy of mobilelions.weebly.com

When people with dietary restrictions and serious allergies grocery shop, it’s not always easy to tell which foods are safe. And surprisingly, there’s not an app for that—yet.

As part of a class on Windows mobile development at Penn State Abington, students Derrick Hiestand, James Boyer, Adalat Khan and Stephen Murray have developed ShopSafe. The mobile application, designed for smartphones, allows users to enter their specific restrictions or allergies, then scan UPC symbols of items at the grocery store. A green “pass” or red “fail” icon appears, along with a detailed list of the product’s ingredients. Encouraged by Professor Joseph Oakes, the guys entered ShopSafe in the Microsoft Imagine Cup, an international technology competition that awards $240,000 to the most innovative student design, announced at the NYC finals in July. ShopSafe has already made the first cut.

The team (they’ve dubbed themselves the MobileLions) is now busy preparing a project plan for round two, says Hiestand, and working on a beta version of the app that can be released to the public. They’ve also been busy hobnobbing: The guys met Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Governor Tom Corbett last week at the opening of the Microsoft Technology Center in Malvern. They presented ShopSafe at the event (watch the presentation here), and Ballmer congratulated the team on their hard work. Now, that’s a good sign.

Mary Murphy, associate editor

Entry filed under: College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State Abington, Penn State students, Uncategorized. Tags: Adalat Khan, Derrick Hiestand, James Boyer, Joseph Oakes, Microsoft Imagine Cup, MobileLions, ShopSafe, Stephen Murray.