When Bitanya Derese began raising money for children in Ethiopia, the country where she was born, she didn’t realize the importance of her endeavor. Derese, a first-year student at the University of Cincinnati, left Ethiopia with her family when she was just 3 years old. She doesn’t remember much of her life before immigrating to the United States besides the long plane ride. Returning to her native country last year, Derese saw how impactful her charitable donation would be and how fortunate she was.

Combining their knowledge of economics and computer science, a University of Cincinnati professor and student won first place in an international hackathon competition with their solution to counter inflation's harmful effects. The hackathon, a competition in which participants engage in engineering over a relatively short period, was sponsored by CoinDesk, a news site specializing in bitcoin and digital currencies, and the Crypto Research and Design Lab (CRADL).