Bafana Bafana may have fallen at the first hurdle, but two University of Johannesburg students are hoping to go one better in Poland next week when they compete against the world's top student computer programmers in the finals of Microsoft's Imagine Cup.
Kieron Ekron and Jacobus Bijker hope their crowd control programme will win the approval of the judges at the final of the Microsoft-sponsored technology competition which saw more than 200 000 entries from 100 countries this year. They won their place in the finals by winning the South African leg of the competition late last year.
Ekron and Bijker are hard at work fine-tuning the final presentation of their application, which allows the managers of stadiums, shopping centres and even refugee camps to predict the behaviour of crowds. They hope the fact that it can be put to commercial use will count heavily in their favour with the international judging panel, which is looking for solutions to real-world problems.
“We have managed to build in features that can simulate qualities as diverse as restroom needs, irritability factors and even weather constraints, as the solution lends itself to such a wide range of blue-sky applications,” said Ekron, a Masters student at UJ.
Fellow Masters student Bijker, who will be taking his first trip abroad for the finals, is excited about the prospect of meeting peers from around the globe. “To think that we'll be pitting our creative chutzpah against over 400 of the world's top student programmers in the same month that our country is hosting 32 of the world's nations in style makes me truly proud to represent South Africa,” he said.
South Africa has an excellent track record in competing for these awards, with the 2008 Imagine Cup winners, whereismytransport.com - a solution to SA's frenetic public transport systems - reaching great heights both locally and internationally.
UJ's Academy for Information Technology Professor, Elize Ehlers, says the programme has evolved from a simple stadium crowd control solution to cater for a much broader reach of applicability.
“With South Africa hosting the World Cup and logistics personnel scrambling to get services positioned in the right place at the right time, it becomes all too apparent that computer-generated simulation packages are the solution of the future, saving both time and money in enhancing security and delivering a satisfactory end-user experience,” said Prof Ehlers.
The head of Microsoft's developer and platform team, Clifford de Wit, says the pair represents the next generation of technology and business leaders in South Africa.
“Their creativity and innovation demonstrates how technology can make a difference in peoples' lives in the way we think, work and communicate,” said De Wit. “Those aspiring to become technology leaders need to continue getting their hands dirty playing with technology and pushing the boundaries of innovation.”
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