Mines Students Win Butterfield Cup for New Software Program Connecting Interns and Graduates with Employers

A pair of South Dakota Mines students have won the eighth annual Butterfield Cup. The competition is part of the university's CSC 340 software engineering course and has a history of turning student ideas into start-up companies. This year's contest challenged students to build better software for connecting employers with college students.

The 2021 Butterfield Cup winners, computer science majors Haakon Anderson and Chami Senarath, built the program Pipeline for Recruiters (PFR), which allows employers to create profiles and track potential hires to compare and contrast strengths of various applicants with their internal team.  

“It's a college-to-corporate website that helps recruiters build the pipeline for potential new hires,” says Senarath. “We got to learn a lot about the back-end development and databases and had fun putting our own ideas and spin on the front-end,” Anderson adds.

The Butterfield Cup is an annual competition created by local entrepreneurs to recognize the best mobile app or software produced by a team of Mines students in one semester. Previous winners have gone on to become finalists in the Governor's Giant Vision Competition.

Senarath and Anderson say they may turn the experience and knowledge gained in this class into a separate business idea they have for the next Mines CEO Business Plan Competition, the Governor's Giant Vision Awards and other contests. “Using the skills and knowledge we have gained here we think we have a strong plan for a potential business,” says Senarath.