With the purpose to develop critical thinkers and problem- solvers who address business, economic and societal challenges, the Department of Applied Information Systems (AIS) in the School of Consumer Intelligence and Information Systems (SCiiS) hosted an Innovation Camp for their students, in collaboration with Junior Achievement South Africa ( JA South Africa) on 13 March 2020 at UJ’s APB campus.
Winning team: Herita Kaumbu, Andry Bussugu, Nomongi Hlatshwayo, Themba Buthelzi, Snanda Jamce, Puseletso Kajane, Kavish Rajkumar, Sasekani Ringani, Malaba Tshegofatso and Dr Abiodun Alao (team mentor).
Through this one- day camp fully funded by Delta Air Lines, the aim was to equip students to be a catalyst in their entrepreneurial journey, and critical thinkers in identifying and providing solutions.
Students were engaged by mentors and judges from industry and academia, during this project-based, intensive learning experience, by pitching a societal challenge and providing a tech solution.
On the judging panel, were industry experts from Delta Air Lines, Go Digital SA, Microsoft, IBM, PMI, March & McLennan Companies, Nelson Mandela Foundation and JA South.
‘Alpha’ the name of the winning team, consisted of 1st to 3rd year students from the Department of Applied Information Systems. Their winning solution, Mydelta is an interactive app that communicates with its users (Delta Air Lines customers) using a live chat, and reminds them of required documents needed to take with to the airport.
Judges and Mentors from Industry and Academia.
The app has additional key features such as allocating transport to the airport for the user, if they need it. The app also provides directions using augmented reality (AR) within the airport to show different places or activities the user can explore while waiting for their flight, such as book shops, restaurants, and information offices.
The top three teams won the following prizes: 1st place prize – Lenovo tablets sponsored by Delta Airlines; 2nd place prize – Project Management Workshops sponsored by PMI; and 3rd place prize – Digital Nations Africa – full programme sponsored by IBM.
All participants were also given access to the Digital Nations Africa – Explorer & Design Thinking programmes, to build on lessons learnt from the Innovation Camp and ignite a spark for further training in coding and programming.
Applied Information Systems (AIS) is a discipline that combines the activities of business and information communication technology to facilitate and exploit the use of IT to foster and support business activities within the enterprise and externally to its clients.
