The Australian Software Design Finalists have been announced in the Imaging Cup: the world’s hottest student technology competition. From an app that scans food in your fridge to limit waste to another detecting childhood Pneumonia to Kinect-based learning — let’s take a look at how some of Australia’s brightest Uni students hope to solve some of the world’s toughest problems.
The five finalists profiled below (in no particular order) now head to the Aussie Final on 1 May 2012 in Melbourne where they’ll demo their concepts in an open forum.
Your Invitation To The Finals
Register now for your complimentary ticket to the Melbourne finals in Melbourne. Come and listen to the Top 5 teams battle it out and network with the Imagine Cup stars.
The judging panel includes Michael Hart (CIO at Commonwealth Bank), Dawn Edmond (CFO at New Lease), Nick Abott (Head of Developer Ecosystem at Nokia Australasia) and Maurice Pagnucco (Dean of Engineer at UNSW) to name a few!. The top 3 teams all win prizes, and the winner goes onto the Worldwide finals in Sydney in July!
Software Design Finalists
Team StethoCloud
The problem: Detecting childhood Pneumonia in developing nations
Team StethoCloud: Hon Wen Chong, Andrew Lin, Kim Ramchen, Masha Salehi
(University of Melbourne)
Pneumonia has been labelled as the “forgotten killer of children” due to the lack of attention and exposure in developing nations. This project aims to provide an innovative solution to detect pneumonia ealry. By connecting a stethoscope to a Windows Phone 7 smart phone – a community health worker or unskilled administrator is able to transit diagnostic information into a cloud service that analyses a patients breathing sounds for patterns that represent the earliest stages of pneumonia. Stethocloud reproduces the diagnostic capability of a trained medical doctor and is able to detect, alert, and advise those with little or no awareness of pneumatic or respiratory illness as to the seriousness of a child’s condition and force intervention much earlier, and in effect, save millions of lives a year
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Kinect Academy
The problem: Improving childhood learning engagement during key developmental years
Team Awesome: Vu Pham, Monish Parajuli, Stuart Anderson, Anh Pham
The Kinect device is now being used in new and exciting contexts. Inspired by this, “Kinect Academy” aims to fill the gap with an educational application for children aged four to ten years (a critical childhood development period) which is filled with activities. A NUI interface allow s users to answer sets of quiz questions covering any topic imaginable, with the aim that using body movement and voice commands will be more engaging than traditional learning methods.
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The Confufish Project
The problem: Challenges of food distribution in developing nations
Team Confufish: Brad Lorge, Aimee Lowth
(University of NSW)
Team Confufish has created a flexible and open distribution and logistics system that is simple and cheap enough to be deployed in developing countries. The Project is a distribution and logistics system that uses Windows Phone 7 and Windows Azure to improve food distribution. To minimise costs, Confufish will use schools as food distribution centres, creating a sense of community and facilitating a ‘Food for Learning’ program that helps children attend school feeling healthy and well fed. The system plans optimal travel paths for deliveries based on variables including topology, seasonal restrictions natural disaster alerts and conflict zones. Confufish aims to integrate with existing transport companies, with all delivery vehicles tracked via GPS to maximize delivery efficiency, accountability and driver safety.
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Food4Thought
The problem: Preventing food wastage
Team Food4Thought: Xharmagne Carandang, Paul Du
(University of Canberra)
Food 4 Thought tackles food waste by attempting to change critical behaviors that normally result in food wastage – a major issue contributing to global poverty and hunger. Food4Thought is a Windows Phone solution that focuses on what we as individuals can do about it. By integrating food planning with a simple, easy to navigate pantry tracking system – Food 4 Thought not only saves you time in planning your meals, it also gives you invaluable alerts before your food expires and provides meaningful alternatives that help you eliminate the amount of food you dispose.
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Grand Domain
The problem: Helping teachers tailor content to individual students
Team Grand Domain: Nicholas Darveniza, Luke James, James Talbot
(University of Southern Queensland and Queensland University of Technology)
The problem with traditional educational software and services is that they are tied to a pre-programmed series of levels, tasks and/or lessons and are indifferent to the user. Elko a cloud-based adaptive learning environment that dynamically coordinates and tracks progress across learning modules to reinforce a child’s learning based on it understanding who a child is and how they are performing. A .NET-based and Azure-hosted platform that allows educational software and service providers to create more flexible and adaptable offerings. This is important because it allows teachers to cater more effectively to individual student needs and enhance the learning experience. Elko also lets developers create more effective learning tools, and provides rich information that helps teachers gain a deeper understanding of their students.
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