Students tussle it out in IT solutions competition

Students from different institutions of higher learning pursuing ICT related courses over the weekend convened at Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) for a 36-hour international competition organised by World Bank, Red Cross Society and Random Hacks of Kindness (RHOK). RHOK is a global initiative operational in over 30 countries that develops technology solutions to respond to challenges facing society.The competition, which began Saturday morning and ended last evening, brought together students from the National University of Rwanda, Kist, the Adventist University of Central Africa, Kigali Independent University and Umutara Polytechnique, with each represented by 10 students.Participants were expected to identify a problem in the society under the areas of; disaster management, agriculture, health and sanitation, and develop sustainable technology solutions within in 36 hours.The event occurred simultaneously in four East African countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda) and was streamed live so participants can follow their counterpart’s work. Hassina Uwamahoro, a student at the Adventist University of Central Africa who participated in the competition, said the event served to build her confidence, especially in the area of making presentations. “Participating not only gave me experience and exposure, it also boosted my confidence in making presentations. It also gave us a chance to work with students of various universities and exchange ideas and experiences,” she said. Uwamohoro added that it would be more beneficial for participants if the organisers would follow up and help build on participants’ solutions. “I hope to see the organisers mentoring us and funding us to refine our ideas into finished products.”Speaking to The New Times, Slyvie Mukunde Mbonye, the director of ICT at KIST, said one of the objectives of the completion was to share experiences and skills from working with different people for the common good. “We were not expecting them to necessarily submit finished solutions, we wanted to expose them to critical thinking to solve problems within the shortest time possible. Sustainability and originality“In the long run, we will mentor them and incubate them to come up with refined solutions so they should not worry that their ideas will go unnoticed,” he said.The participants made presentations on the solutions and applications they had come up with before a panel of judges yesterday evening. Joseph Sunday, a member of the panel stressed that sustainability and originality were the core benchmarks they were looking out for in awarding the best presentations. “Most of the solutions presented were practical though they would require mentoring and incubation before they can be implemented. Though they worked under pressure and a tight deadline, most of them came up good solutions considering that they worked under team set-up,” Sunday said.The students were put into different groups and were mixed.While presenting awards to winners, the Acting Director of Science Technology and Research at the Ministry of Education, Remy Twiringiyimana urged them to strive to polish their solutions and present them at other forums after fully developing them.He said that government will fund them through established mechanisms that are there to support innovations. “Rwanda Innovation Development Fund supports innovative young Rwandans; I encourage you to make use of such funds to unleash their potential.”Alex Ntale, the director of the ICT Chamber at the Private Sector Federation commended participants urging them to make use of the available facilities to implement their projects. “This is a great initiative that we would like to support, especially helping the best projects into implementation. I take this opportunity to invite KIST students to become members of K-Lab, Rwanda’s Open Techpreneur Space, Where they can work closely with mentors to further their projects,” Ntale said.