Nearly 50 college students had planned to compete at the University of Hawaii at Hilo for $5,000 in prizes, but the COVID-19 crisis shut their campuses and scattered them as far as Spain.

So in this era of enforced seclusion, organizers opted to go virtual with the 2020 HIplan Hackathon contest, whose goal was to design an app-based solution to help the community rebuild after a disaster.

“The most surprising thing for me is that our hack turned into a truly global event with both students and mentors collaborating from remote locations around the world,” said Jason Ueki, executive director of the nonprofit HIplan, which trains entrepreneurs. “We believe it’s the first 100% virtual hackathon in the state of Hawaii.”

Students and expert mentors who had never met before discovered new ways of connecting through the BizzyB.com collaborative learning platform developed by the Bizgenics Foundation, a Hawaii-based nonprofit that produced the contest with HIplan. The event was sponsored by Kamehameha Schools, Ulupono Initiative, the County of Hawaii, UH Hilo and Hawaii Community College.

Students worked for two days to devise plans to help restore communities recovering from the recent eruption of Kilauea Volcano.

The winning team reached back to the old-fashioned notion of a barn raising, when neighbors would come together, and gave it a modern twist. Their “HomeRaiser App” aimed to link people who had lost their homes with neighbors willing to share their skills, supplies and vehicles to help rebuild those homes.

Originally, 47 college students had signed up for the extracurricular contest, but that was before their campuses shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the end, 15 students took part, divided into four teams, each with a mix of majors and students from both UH Hilo and Hawaii Community College.

“I was grateful for the teams that showed up, the students who did participate,” Ueki said, given the pandemic. “I can’t imagine how some people’s lives must be completely turned over backwards, forwards and upside down.”

To participate, Luca Checchia Adell, an international business major at UH Hilo who hails from Valencia, Spain, had to stay awake all night in a time zone half a world away.

The contest ran from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hawaii time on the weekend of April 4-5. For Cecchia Adell the 12-hour time difference meant it ran from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Another student clocked in from Mexico City; others, from Washington and California.

Despite juggling sleep patterns, Cecchia Adell called the contest “a very good experience.”

“At the beginning I was a little confused, but we worked pretty good together,” he said in videotaped comments as the contest wound up. “And at the end we got a good idea. … Everything went pretty smooth.”

Mentors, including seasoned entrepreneurs and tech professionals, helped from as far away as North Carolina and Bangladesh. They worked with students through private videoconferences and by offering comments and feedback as the students developed their concepts.

“It’s just nice brainstorming with people, especially new people that you don’t really know,” said student Catherine Kane-Paulo. “It’s cool getting ideas from people that you wouldn’t usually talk to.”

Steve Sue, chairman of the Bizgenics Foundation, said he has been fielding more calls from Department of Education staff about using the BizzyB learning platform, which is well suited for collaborative work and challenge-based competitions while students are confined at home.

“This is one way we can get teachers working with their kids remotely, and we’re excited to have that happen,” Sue said. “When schools began closing due to coronavirus, we made BizzyB entirely free for the rest of the school year. … We’re happy to support HIplan and other producers of innovation-based learning programs.”

The $2,500 first-place award for the HIplan Hackathon went to Makamae Kamaka-Mauhili, Brian McMichael, Karly Requelman and Zoe Whitney of The Repair Crew for their Home Raisers App; $1,500 for second place went to Kevianna Adams, Santos Gutierez, Ryen Helzer and Kane-Paulo of CommUnity Inc. for their Coconut Grove App; and $1,000 for third place went to Checchia Adell, Casey Chow, Kevin Oh and Jena Shidaki of Double D for their Disaster Defense App.

Bizgenics specializes in innovation and entrepreneurship programs for kids in kindergarten through 12th grade, including Lemonade Alley. HIplan, a charitable nonprofit based in Hilo, aims to develop entrepreneurs on the island and is best known for its annual $25,000 business plan competition.