Team Apex PentaVertex (APV), a group of five students from the University of Pretoria, were announced the winners of the Responsive Cities Challenge.
The Responsive Cities Challenge was an open data challenge organised by the Open Government Partnership South Africa (OGP SA), Open Data Institute (ODI) and a number of local partners such as the Innovation Hub and Youth IT organisation, Geekulcha.
According to the Innovation Hub, the aim of the challenge was to encourage developers, designers, researchers and entrepreneurs to use available open data from various municipalities across SA to develop applications, stories and visualisations that can help residents work better with local government and seek solutions to existing social challenges.
In its first edition, the challenge, themed 'Responsive Cities' received more than 100 entries from each of the four participating cities - Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Kimberley and eThekwini.
The APV team developed VivaImpilo, a Web-based business intelligence warning system aimed at providing relevant information to the communities within Ekurhuleni.
According to Geekulcha, VivaImpilo consists of data gathering, data maintenance and basic analytics to provide members of the community with information warning them of storms, tornadoes, and other emergency- related information. This information is sourced from the Ekurhuleni municipality and uploaded onto the Web portal.
Tiyani Nghonyama, COO and CTO of Geekulcha, said he was proud of the winning team.
"VivaImpilo created a system that will add value to the various communities within Ekurhuleni by providing an easy, effective way for the municipality to gather and analyse data to produce useful information for public use. This provides the capability to identify new opportunities, and to implement an effective strategy based on insights gained from the data," he explained.
The developers of VivaImpilo - Daphney Vunguvungu, Frikan Erwee, Kevin Potgieter, Sedgeley Penniken, and Mabutsu Valentine Ragoasha walked away with R60 000 and additional support funding worth R300 000. The three runners-up, representing each city, were given R10 000 each. Their winning innovations were Vizibiliti Insight, AguaContada and JIMA App, said Geekulcha.
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