Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Golfer Eric Mitchell Part of Winning 'HackPrinceton' Team
November 20, 2015 | Men's Golf
Princeton sophomore golfer Eric Mitchell has achieved success on the course, winning Yale's MacDonald Cup last year, and he recently had the chance to show his talents in the tech world with last weekend's HackPrinceton event.
Mitchell was part of the winning team at the event, in which teams of up to five people had 36 hours from Friday night to Sunday morning to build any app or device.
Mitchell's team built an app called CommPound, which Mitchell describes as aiming "to solve problems in communities that are usually ignored. In particular, the app deals with problems that affect a large number of people, but only a little bit. In this case, it is not worth it for any one person to go and solve the problem. Our solution allows people to pool the small contributions that people would be willing to make (one or two dollars) into a fund that would eventually grow large enough to incentivize someone to get the issue resolved."
As proud as Will Green, the J. Stuart Francis '74 head coach of men's golf, is of Mitchell's play on the course, he also cheers Mitchell's achievements as he furthers his tech pursuits.
"We talk a lot about the 'Princeton experience' and how Princeton is a place where you have the ability to do extraordinary things, and Eric is an example of that," Green said. "In winning this competition, Eric is proof that the notion of the student-athlete is alive and well at Princeton. I'm exceedingly proud of Eric and of our university today."
Among Mitchell's team's prizes were a chance to interview for startup capital from Entrepreneur's Roundtable Accelerator and interviews for a summer positon at Blockchain, which is a wallet provider for the e-currency Bitcoin.