Winners of inaugural Ericsson and University of Technology, Sydney Hackathon announced
- Ericsson and UTS have named the winners of the inaugural UTS FEIT + Ericsson Smart Cities Hackathon 2017
- The winning team developed ‘Smart e-Vac’ - a smart emergency evacuation system
- The UTS FEIT + Ericsson Hackathon gives students the opportunity to work with Ericsson mentors to develop innovative IoT solutions for our cities.
Ericsson Australia and the University of Technology Sydney have announced the overall winner of the inaugural UTS Faculty of Engineering and IT (FEIT) and Ericsson Smart Cities Hackathon 2017.
The UTS FEIT + Ericsson Hackathon provided UTS students with the opportunity to develop Internet-of-Things (IoT) solutions in collaboration with Ericsson experts. A total of 50 students gathered to participate in the hackathon, the theme of which was smart cities.
The winning team, ‘Conext’, developed a smart evacuation system for their submission. Called ‘Smart e-Vac’, the solution focuses on using real time data from building sensors to guide and facilitate the most efficient and safest evacuation point for the occupants. The occupants of buildings in an emergency situation would be guided via ground projections or digital LCD displays to their calculated exit. The solution would also send the information collected directly to emergency services, to assist them in rescue plans.
Andrew Pope, from the winning team, said: “Our idea came about when we jokingly talked about the delays in evacuating the engineering building. We realised that this problem could be solved through analysing the congestion levels at each fire exit (using real-time sensor information) and re-routing evacuating occupants to less congested exits.”
The winners were chosen at the UTS Engineering and FEIT building on March 17, 2017, by a jury chaired by Ericsson, UTS and the IoT Alliance.
Jury members included Frank Zeichner, CEO of the IoT Alliance, Mirko Ocokoljic, Regional Head of the Software Adaptation Center , Ericsson, David Cooper, Head of Network Products, Australia and New Zealand, Ericsson, Colin Pritchard, Head of Human Resources, Australia and New Zealand, Ericsson, Lisa Tuffs, Principal Consultant, Ericsson, Beeshanga Jayawickrama, Lecturer, School Computing and Communications, Ren Ping Liu, Professor, School of Computing and Communications.
Colin Pritchard, Head of Human Resources, Ericsson Australia and New Zealand, said; “Ericsson believes ICT can address the challenges faced by growing cities. The UTS FEIT + Ericsson Smart Cities Hackathon provided an environment for students to collaborate and act as drivers of change through their development of innovative and business savvy IoT solutions. We also encouraged and rewarded teams on the impact their project might have on contributing to a more sustainable future, and in the way that they worked together as a diverse team, leveraging different perspectives to achieve an outcome. This is line with Ericsson’s goal of supporting diversity and the development of our young ICT talent in our industry.”
Each student in the award winning teams will receive a prize voucher and will have the opportunity to fast track Ericsson’s graduate program. They will also have the opportunity to work further with Ericsson in their major projects throughout the semester.
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More about the Hackathon:
An additional three teams were also named as award recipients:
Innovation Award: ‘RLC’ presented ‘Level Up’, which gamifies the level of physical activity between the different competing buildings at UTS, for the benefit of the environment. For example, ‘Level Up’ would include a leader board projection at the entrance of each building indicating progress and the amount of energy saved by taking the stairs instead of lifts.
Social Responsibility Award: ‘The Godhackers’ developed ‘ecoCTRL’ which is an integrated environmental control system for offices and facilities. ecoCTRL aims to control room temperature and light luminosity to maintain optimum workplace productivity as well as decrease energy usage.
Business Value Award and Team Diversity and Inclusion: ‘Smart Transport’ developed a solution that sets up a transport network of devices to track people, weather, day, time and events to increase network capacity and flexibility as well as improve service delivery.
UTS FEIT ‘Conext’ Winning Team members Harsimran Kaur, Po-Hao Chen, Alina Sherbakov, Andrew Pope and Andrew Truong with Ericsson Australia and New Zealand’s Head of Network Products David Cooper (centre) and Ericsson Australia and New Zealand’s Head of Human Sources, Colin Pritchard.
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