Junior Kaito Sekiya places first at Harvard hackathon
Junior Kaito Sekiya places first at Harvard hackathon Heading link

Last semester, computer science undergraduate Kaito Sekiya traveled to Boston to compete in HackHarvard 2024: Hack for Impact. He and his teammates won the Patient Safety Challenge for a prescription and medical symptom-tracking device they created called Althea.
“My team considered all ideas of apps for all possible tracks at the hackathon, but only one resonated with all of us–healthcare,” Sekiya said. “All of us had some annoying experience with medication prescriptions.”
He and teammates Ashley Etheridge from Montclair State University, Alen Ganopolsky from Northeastern University, and Samantha Adams, a student at the College of Holy Cross, created a no-sign-up-required app that allows users to enter the prescription drugs they take on a given day and report any symptoms they felt that could be side effects of one of those drugs. App users can rate the severity of any symptoms they exhibit and export the information into a PDF to share with healthcare providers.
“We incorporated generative AI and open-source FDA data about drugs that includes side effects and recommended actions,” Sekiya said. “Results of the patient’s survey and medication data are used by the same large language model to evaluate the side effects and classify them between non-concerning and severe.”
Sekiya said his team used JavaScript with Tailwind CSS and HTML for the front end and Python with Django for the back end. The group used SQLite for patient data and PostgreSQL for medicine data. For the mobile app alternative, the group used pure Flutter.
The group plans to continue work on the app, connecting web and mobile apps and streamlining the user experience.
Sekiya, a junior, is a member of SIG Hacks, an ACM special interest group. He was the only UIC student selected to participate in HarvardHacks. This was his first hackathon outside of Chicago, and Sekiya knew he would meet students from all over the country and around the world at the competition.
Sekiya is active at UIC: he is the SIG hacks lead at ACM, and a systems engineer with CS Trackers. He was a Guaranteed Paid Internship Program (GPIP) intern for Clinical Associate Professor Shanon Reckinger over the summer in 2023 and continues to work with her as a research assistant. He is a teaching assistant (TA) for CS 351, Advanced Data Structure Practicum, this semester, was head TA for CS 111, Program Design I, last semester, and was a TA for CS 211, Programming Practicum, last summer.
Sekiya’s interest in computer science began when he was young. He enjoyed building things from Lego and moved on to robotics and aeromodelling in middle school. Through robotics, he was exposed to programming and did a lot of coding in high school.
“When it came time to apply for colleges, my major choice was obvious,” Sekiya said.
Sekiya has already lined up his summer plans and has accepted an engineering internship with Cboe Global Markets. After graduation, he plans to either enroll in a computer science master’s degree program or find a job in computer systems.
For information on hackathons, scholarships, internships, and research experiences for undergraduates, check the CS website’s student opportunities page.