The University of Johannesburg`s fleet administration and satellite tracking (FAST) team has won this year`s Microsoft Project Firefly award for its tracking solution for fleets and emergency vehicles.
Project Firefly, currently in its third year, is Microsoft`s attempt to bridge the gap between academia and industry in SA. Students are invited from around the country to demonstrate their applications or programming models before a panel of judges.
The event was staged at the University of KwaZulu-Natal campus in Westville last week. Thirty-four South African student projects were selected from 347 projects (comprising 1 691 students) nationwide to represent the respective institutes in what many deem the "ICT academic development Oscars".
Danny Naidoo, developer and platform director at Microsoft South Africa, said in a radio interview with SAFM that the intention of Project Firefly is to promote development within academia, and empower and motivate students. The 2003 and 2004 winners have now independently joined to form their own ICT solution development company.
This year Project Firefly hosted an assortment of technologies and innovative ideas. The systems incorporated technologies such as satellite tracking, remote home automation, facial recognition, video surveillance, RFID, Internet-enabled robotics and biometric and licence plate reading access control.
This year`s winning team comprised Ross Jones and Dean Proxenos, who will now compete for $25 000 at the International Imagine Cup finals in India later this year.
Also recognised for merit awards at this year`s event were: the Mercury Wireless RFID payment system, the SAIM facial recognition and video surveillance system, AMOS airline management and operation system, and Arnie`s Quake Cost, which estimates the costs of an earthquake occurring in Johannesburg.
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