Rinchi
TechInAfrica – SqwidNet has announced the launching of the 2nd round of IoT South Africa University Challenge. The tech competition is proposed for South African university students, encouraging them to be involved in solving real-world problems facing the country and continent by utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT).
Chetan Goshalia, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at SqwidNet said: “We developed this initiative in partnership with Sigfox as we believe that young people have a very different view of the world. They approach challenges differently and because they have grown up with technology at their fingertips, they find alternative ways of applying it to do so.”
The winner of the challenge will be awarded a cash prize, both for the participants and the tertiary institution. The leader of the winning team will have an opportunity to present their solution in front of experts in the technology industry at the Sigfox headquarters in France.
Goshalia remarked, “We saw incredibly creative solutions emerge during the first round of the challenge. These included solutions for animal tracking, reducing the number of cash-in-transit heists, and the monitoring of climatic conditions such as temperature, humidity, pressure, and gasses.”
Stelenbosch University that emerged as the winning team, developed a smart collar for an animal as a monitor. The collar can check the animal condition and be alerted when it’s at risk. Their innovation also included GPS location data used to create geofences or virtual perimeters. When the geofences are away from an animal, an alert is on and sent via SMS. Furthermore, it can also monitor an animal’s vital signs such as heart rate and behavior.
“Students are encouraged to form teams with other students from other faculties as it supports the “multiple perspectives” principles of design thinking. Once they have a team in place and have come up with an idea for a specific solution, they can enter the challenge by visiting the IoT SA University Challenge website from the 25th of March 2019, entering their team members’ details and an outline of the project they are embarking on,” Goshalia said.
“The first round of judging will then take place and the finalists selected will receive a development kit from SqwidNet together with ongoing support while developing their solution. The finalists will then have the opportunity to present their solutions to a panel of judges after which a winner will be selected.”
Source: techtrendske.co.ke
