Two Students Winners of Amazon’s GOAT: Decoding a Successful App Challenge

by Ms. Edit Boral

Over the summer, CS110 (Programming with Python) students Sebastian Sanabria ’23 (pictured left) and Tyler Tabarovsky ‘23 (pictured right) placed in the top 70 winners of the nationwide “GOAT: Decoding a Successful App” challenge created by Amazon and GOAT. Hundreds of feature prototypes went through multiple rounds of judging by Amazon employees, GOAT employees, and the GOAT CEOs themselves, and the judges selected Tyler’s and Sebastian’s prototypes as standouts based on innovation, creativity, and design.

“We had so many incredible submissions, and it's no small feat that your students won this challenge,” said the GOAT: Decoding a Successful App team.

During the five-day long GOAT: Decoding a Successful App Challenge, students learned about the GOAT company and how different members of their team have developed the technology solutions that have helped them grow to be worth over a billion dollars.

On day one, students heard from Eddy Lu, GOAT’s CEO and co-founder, as he described the importance of problem solving in successful entrepreneurship and app design. The next day, the GOAT team shared their first Black Friday experience. On day three, students explored the role of a DevOps Engineer and learned how multiple people and teams must work together to solve complex problems. During the fourth day of the challenge, students learned how GOAT uses data science and artificial intelligence to authenticate sneakers and run their business more effectively. They also learned how to use customer data to personalize the user experience. At the end of the five days, students were ready to tackle the challenge and to build a new app feature using App Lab to help GOAT’s customers find the right product at the right time.

Please click on the images below to see Tyler’s and Sebastian’s winning apps and hear from them how they solved the problem GOAT is facing. Both students received prize packages from Amazon and GOAT.

ABOUT GOAT: GOAT is the global platform for the greatest products from the past, present, and future. Since its founding in 2015, GOAT has become the leading and most trusted sneaker marketplace in the world. Through its unique positioning between the primary and resale markets, the company offers styles across various time periods on its digital platforms and in its retail locations, while delivering products to over 30 million members across 170 countries.