Student Spotlight | Sara Hasan
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Taking 18-credit hours of courses her freshman year inspired sophomore Electrical and Computer Engineering student Sara Hasan to develop an app.
“I was struggling with managing my tasks and managing my assignments. I was talking to a friend, and she had the same issues,” Hasan said.
“So, I was planning to do the app just for me and her, then I started talking to students and found out we all struggled with the same thing. I wanted to make something that would help students to have their tasks organized.”
She then set out to survey students on how best to solve a problem so many were facing.
Using her background in information technology and training acquired in electrical and computer engineering, Hasan began developing her productivity app Task Tutor, utilizing Flutter with Firebase.
Growing up in Palestine, Hasan moved to Memphis to be closer to her parents and to attend the UofM’s Electrical and Computer Engineering program. From a young age she has always had an interest in machine learning and software development, participating in competitions in high school such as the FIRST LEGO International Competition where she was a part of a team that had to build an autonomous robot for an urban simulation challenge that could complete 25 tasks.
As a UofM student, she’s been expanding on her skills ever since. Part of her coursework at the UofM allowed her to create an Arduino-based Pong game during a class project which involved hardware, coding and wiring circuits. “I’ve really enjoyed the courses that we can take. The projects that we are involved in, we really get the chance to work in it, in groups and teams and the projects are related with what you’re really going to work with in the future, after getting a degree.”
In between class projects she works on developing Task Tutor.
In as little as 18 months, Hasan has been able to build the app which can create to-do lists, assignment and deadline tracking — all with built in notifications and reminders. It was important for Hasan to include a community component into the app’s features as well which allow students to connect with each other and other students taking the same courses or majors as them.
“I wanted to make something that would help students.”
She also wanted to include affirmations and motivational messages as part of Task Tutor to inspire students to not give up.
“For me personally, that message with small words it could make a difference in my mood, and I thought most of the student could have that same thing. If someone could tell you, ‘This is not hard,’ or ‘I believe in you,’ you’ll feel more of that positive energy and work better.”
Hasan is in the final stages of completing her app to launch this summer on the App Store and Google Play. She hopes to continuously expand its features including incorporating AI.
