App for finding blood donors wins top prize at Smart 13th SWEEP Awards
The SWEEP Awards is a long-running collaboration between Smart and the academe with the aim of raising the standards for engineering and information technology education in the country. Image: Smart
After all the deliberations at this year’s Smart 13th SWEEP Awards, one team whose app is meant to help find blood donors for those in need of transfusion took the top prize.
The app is called BloodSeeker, the product of a team from the University of San Jose-Recoletos. Their mobile and web app matches people who are in need of a particular blood type with potential donors within a one kilometer radius.
Potential donors are required to answer a list of questions about their health which includes drug use, travel history, and sexual habits before being allowed to donate.
Team BuyONG from Batangas State University. Image: Alfred Bayle
Coming in close as first runner up is an online application called BuyONG, short for Buy Online-N’-Go. It allows users to do their grocery shopping at the comfort of their own home.
Team TRAFFIX from Ateneo de Manila University. Image: Alfred Bayle
Shoppers can then simply pick up the items via drive-thru. The team behind it hails from Batangas State University.
The second runner-up spot went to the team from Ateneo de Manila University and their TRAFFIX app. The application helps drivers in a way that Waze cannot by calculating the optimal route for deliveries that have multiple destinations.
Users can set their destinations for the day as well as the priority levels. The app then calculates the most efficient route using heuristic algorithms. It can also display the estimated time of arrival.
Team AgriLife receives a special award from Ericsson as their project is line to the Ericsson Innovation Award 2017 theme of ‘Create Zero Hunger.’ Image: Alfred Bayle
A special award was given by Smart partner Ericsson to the team from Wesleyan University-Philippines for their AgriLife app. This application aims to help Filipino farmers by connecting them to potential investors and registered cooperatives.
The farmers may then receive financial assistance from this system during cropping season. Anyone will be able to invest for as low as P100 to help farmers purchase pre-harvest requirements. Through these investments, the developers hope to help farmers avoid going in debt. Afterwards, investors may choose to withdraw their money, reinvest, or buy harvested crops through Smart Money and PayMaya accounts.
The winning team took home P300,000 while its school received a P150,000-grant. The second and third placers received P200,000 and P100,000 respectively, as their schools get half the amount of their prizes.
BloodSeeker, BuyONG and TRAFFIX led a pool of 230 applications from 52 schools.
Mentoring inventors
In order to help the winners and finalists make the most of their respective projects, Smart paired them up with technical and marketing mentors. From company executives to successful entrepreneurs, the teams got all the help they could get during bootcamp sessions at the Asian Institute of Management.
The finalists were taught the importance of knowing their market and checking out competitors, as well as how to guard against fraud.
The SWEEP Awards was launched in 2004 to provide college students with the platform to create innovative applications that solve consumer pain points. It is an initiative under SWEEP, a long-running collaboration between Smart and the academe, to raise the standards of engineering and information technology education in the country.
Team BloodSeeker celebrating with members of two other teams from the University of San Jose-Recoletos. Image: Alfred Bayle
With these promising young minds’ solutions to urgent health, consumer and transportation issues, the future looks bright for the betterment of Filipino lives through technology.
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