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Florida State University\u2019s Innovation Hub recently hosted its 10th 24-hour Design Sprint, \u201cHack the Job Market,\u201d partnering with Amazon Web Services and the FSU Career Center to equip students with the technical tools and professional strategies needed to navigate the modern workforce. (Casey McCarthy\/Florida State University)\t\t<\/p>\n
Florida State University students spent 24 hours building AI-powered tools to help solve one of higher education\u2019s toughest challenges: connecting students to the right internships and early career opportunities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hosted by FSU\u2019s\u00a0Innovation Hub<\/a>, the university\u2019s\u00a010th\u00a024-Hour Design Sprint, \u201cHack the Job Market,\u201d brought together interdisciplinary student teams and industry mentors from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to design,\u00a0prototype\u00a0and pitch\u00a0new\u00a0technologies\u00a0aimed at simplifying and personalizing the job-search process.\u00a0<\/p>\n The event marked a new partnership between FSU and AWS that gives students access to advanced generative AI tools, hands-on technical\u00a0support\u00a0and continued mentorship to move winning ideas beyond a 24-hour prototype and toward production-ready solutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEvents like this Design Sprint hosted by the Innovation Hub provide our students with unique and incredibly valuable opportunities to work closely with industry, university, and community partners, and apply what they are learning in the classroom to design innovative solutions to real-world, challenging problems.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Paul Marty, associate vice provost for academic innovation<\/p>\n \u201cHigher education is at a critical turning point where we must move beyond traditional instruction to meet the needs of today\u2019s lifelong learners,\u201d said Paul Marty, associate vice provost for academic innovation. \u201cEvents like this Design Sprint hosted by the Innovation Hub provide our students with unique and incredibly valuable opportunities to work closely with industry, university, and community partners, and apply what they are learning in the classroom to design innovative solutions to real-world, challenging problems.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n During the event, 10 interdisciplinary teams competed in an initiative led by the FSU Career Center, using AWS methods and AI technologies to develop systems that better match students with ideal internships, a process that is currently complex and time-consuming.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n To guide their innovation\u00a0process, students\u00a0used\u00a0Amazon\u2019s\u00a0proprietary\u00a0\u201cWorking Backwards\u201d framework, which\u00a0requires teams to define the ideal customer experience and draft a hypothetical\u00a0press\u00a0release\u00a0and\u00a0FAQ (PRFAQ)\u00a0before beginning technical development.\u00a0This\u00a0process\u00a0is\u00a0designed\u00a0so\u00a0the final product\u00a0remains\u00a0rooted in human empathy and user needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Innovation Hub teaches\u00a0\u2018Design Thinking\u2019\u00a0as an innovation framework that\u00a0has been embraced by\u00a0corporations\u00a0around the world,\u201d said Ken Baldauf,\u00a0founding\u00a0director of the Innovation Hub.\u00a0\u201cAWS\u2019s Working Backwards\u00a0methodology\u00a0is\u00a0their own version of Design Thinking, what they call their \u201cSecret Sauce\u201d for developing\u00a0human-centered\u00a0innovative solutions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Teams then translated those visions into reality using AWS Kiro, an agentic coding\u00a0platform\u00a0powered by Amazon Bedrock. The\u00a0tool\u00a0allowed\u00a0students to\u00a0enter\u00a0their proposed\u00a0ideas,\u00a0and FAQ\u00a0along with other\u00a0natural language prompts to autonomously generate working code,\u00a0documentation\u00a0and tests, enabling rapid prototyping of sophisticated AI-driven solutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The event\u00a0led\u00a0to\u00a0a high-stakes pitch competition where teams presented their prototypes\u00a0and fully functional apps\u00a0to a panel of experts. The winning solutions offered fresh perspectives on navigating the modern hiring landscape, from AI-driven networking assistants to personalized career path mapping tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n Taking\u00a0first place\u00a0was\u00a0Spear Career AI<\/a>, a multidisciplinary team\u00a0of\u00a0FSU students:\u00a0Naman Bajpai, Shib Sudha Behera, Jazib Damani, Ryan\u00a0Nageer\u00a0and George Quintans. The group developed\u00a0an\u00a0internship dashboard that gamifies professional development by using AI-driven tools,\u00a0such as automated cover letter generation and real-time job board scraping\u00a0to help students track marketable skills and bridge the gap to production-ready career opportunities.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEverything moved\u00a0fast,\u00a0ideas were constantly changing and there was a lot of problem-solving on the fly, but that\u2019s what made this experience\u00a0so\u00a0rewarding,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Jazib Damani, a\u00a0freshman\u00a0at the\u00a0Herbert Wertheim College of Business<\/a>. \u201cWatching something come together in such\u00a0a short time\u00a0was a massive achievement.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Second place was awarded to\u00a0Nole Path<\/a>, a team\u00a0comprised\u00a0of Colin Garbutt,\u00a0Bomine\u00a0Jayasinghe, Daniel Miranda, Carlos Rodriguez-Gonzalez, Katya\u00a0Serechenko\u00a0and\u00a0Ermithe\u00a0Tilusca. Their project featured\u00a0an AI Career Strategist that personalizes the professional development journey by scraping live job advertisements to provide students with real-time, data-driven insights into career readiness.\u00a0<\/p>\n Third place went to\u00a0appliRL<\/a>, developed by the team of Avery Dasher, Samir\u00a0Kanbar, Ryan\u00a0Kurfirst, Darya\u00a0Pylypenko\u00a0and Gabrielle Vays. The group designed an AI agent that bridges the gap between campus and career by transforming traditional networking events into interactive \u201cscouting combines\u201d where students can\u00a0showcase\u00a0their technical skills directly to recruiters.\u00a0<\/p>\n