Christopher Gu, a computer science student at S&T, participated in the TAVtech Fellowship​ in Tel Aviv, Israel, earlier this semester. He was selected for the four-week program, which is operated by the New York University (NYU) Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life in partnership with Onward Israel, Israel Experience, NYU Tel Aviv, and RISE Barclay’s Accelerator.

While a TAVtech fellow, Gu took courses in cybersecurity, big data, data science and coding. He met with leaders, visited cultural sites and companies, and interacted with local students at Tel Aviv University, IDC Herzliya and Hebrew University.

The fellowship culminated in a three-day hackathon – called TAVhacks – in which the fellows worked together and used newly learned skills and lessons from entrepreneurs to prototype a new technology product. Gu and his team won the hackathon with a social impact venture called stoplite, which is an app that allows individuals to share their sexually transmitted infection (STI) or sexually transmitted disease (STD) test information with their partners in real time.