Students showcase their innovative products at the event. (Photo: ASU) Carrying their innovations from the Maker to Entrepreneur curriculum, thestudent teams advanced their EPICS projects into viable products and sharedtheir early market traction at the Innovation & Entrepreneurship ChallengeShowcase.
The showcase was co-organised by the United States Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID) Building University-Industry Learning and Developmentthrough Innovation and Technology (BUILD-IT) Alliance and the Dow Vietnam STEMProgram in Ho Chi Minh City on April 5.
The programme brought opportunities for students to improve independence,creativity, determination, business savvy, and communication skills to take theiridea from inception to complete the pitch deck and present to the panel ofjudges.
In the first round of the Innovation Showcase, 28 student teams showcased theirinnovative prototypes to a panel of judges from government, industry, andacademia. The top 10 teams with the highest scores proceeded to thePresentation round, in which the students demonstrated how engineers can learnto use market forces to prove that their early-stage products have marketdemand.
Team Euphoria from the Da Nang University of Technology won the first prizeaward with a project that designed remote power quality data collection tomonitor power-quality data in real time, predict power consumption, and ensurepower quality and power system operation.
Team MechaLog from HCM City University of Technology won second prize with aproject developing a low cost, automatic camera that will measure trafficdensity, then calculate a suitable waiting time. The result of this projectaims to reduce CO2 emission, while also lower human resources and energy cost,and improve overall on-road experience.
Team O.L.M.A from the HCM City University of Technology won third prize with anAlgae Lamp project, which focuses on the efficient absorption of CO2 by algae,house illumination and oxygen production.
Team BKM-AI from the Da Nang University of Technology won the second thirdprize with a project to build a robot applying AI, especially facialrecognition for management and monitoring of areas that require high security.
Team Goldstein Birds from the Da Nang University of Technology won the awardfor the best female-led project with a project of creating a board productrecycled from bagasse which can replace natural material products.
For the sixth year in a row, the BUILD-IT Alliance, implemented by ArizonaState University and partnered with the Dow Vietnam STEM Program, has joinedforces to support student-led innovation and bring industry-linked appliedprojects in innovation, entrepreneurship, and research to undergraduates acrossVietnamese universities. To date, Dow Vietnam has leveraged over 200,000 USD toprovide more than 1,000 opportunities for students to gain the confidence andcapacity to engineer social innovations./.
VNA
