It’s a 40-hour competition in which teams develop innovative apps for over $20,000 in cash prizes. This year there were 120 entries which range from Skype For Grandma to augmented reality apps.

My thoughts were “who knows what students need better than students?” So here is my list of great apps that came out of PennApps 2013, written by students, for students.

Work, work, work!

TakeNote:

TakeNote removes all the hassle of mindlessly copying out notes from a blackboard. After taking a picture of the board from wherever you are in the room, TakeNote uses clever algorithms to rotate the image so that it looks like it was taken from right in front of the board. Giving you readable board notes!

Woodchuck:

Woodchuck is an absolute godsend. One of the worst parts of being a student is reading long (and mostly boring) academic texts. Woodchuck makes this arduous task a little easier by breaking them down into digestible portions that can be read in minutes. It even works on pdfs.

Facewash

It’s no secret that social media profiles are becoming a more important part of job applications (check out our Digital Diaries study) and this is where Facewash can help. Facewash helps “Wash away all those dirty little jokes and beer talk, those late night snapshots, those forgotten "likes." Keep track of all the dirt and grime that attaches to your social self and make you STAY FRESH.”

Interview Me:

Interview Me scrapes the web for interview questions asked by some of the world’s leading tech companies and quizzes you with them. An ideal app for anyone preparing to apply for a graduate position, it’s only a matter of time before they roll out further industry support.

Socialize:

Beets: Jam Finder:

Never be short of a place to catch live music with Beets: Jam Finder. The app overlays live music events onto Google Maps, so you can see what’s on in your neighborhood and embeds a SoundCloud sample of the band on each pin. I’ve never seen anything that lets you discover brand new music and see it live in such simple way.

Ride With Me:

Ride With Me makes it easier than ever before to find people heading in the same direction so that you can split a cab fare. And hey you might meet some cool new people on the way.

Merge:

Merge is a simple concept. It takes your college timetable and those of your friends and gives you a list of who is available to go eat/play/lift with at any given time. It’s not been released yet but should be invaluable guide to finding people to hang with when your lecture get’s cancelled.

EatPayLove:

It wouldn’t be a group meal out amongst students if there wasn’t difficulty splitting up the bill come the end. EatPayLove takes the hassle out of that by calculating how much is owed by each person, and can even help you streamline your order to get you eating ASAP. Like Merge, it’s still in development but watch this space.