S-MART (Smart Market Assistance and Product Training), a mobile application designed and developed by a group of engineering students from the Wesleyan University Philippines to check the price of a particular product, calculate the distance to travel and fuel consumption, and buy/sell products online, was declared the grand champion of the 11th SWEEP (Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program) Innovation and Excellence Awards.
The winning team, whose outstanding innovation targets producers, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and retailers and focuses on helping facilitate trade, received P500,000 in cash; a grant equivalent to same amount for their school; and a trophy.
S-MART tracks prices of basic agricultural crops allowing producers to maximize their profit margins, and consumers to choose the best buys in the market.
Bulacan State University’s Smart IMAGE (Instant Multiple-option Assessor for General Examinations) was awarded the first runner-up, getting P200,000 in cash and an equivalent amount for school as a grant, and a trophy.
An effort to solve short- to long-term problems caused by the conventional way of checking examination papers, Smart IMAGE facilitates efficiency and allows teachers and members of faculty to allocate more time for skills development and student evaluation. The application has the potential to be used for all forms of post-school tests with multiple-option shade-based examinations and designed for records transparency.
With P100,000 in cash; an equivalent amount for school as a grant and a trophy as prizes, the second runner-up went to a mobile app named #BAYANIHAN, an entry from the Batangas State University.
A unified cloud-based solution designed for local government units (LGUs), #BAYANIHAN aims to provide citizens with better access to LGUs’ services, making government processes faster, convenient, and transparent. The application has the ability to reduce, if not eliminate, red tape.
A Web- and an Android-based application, #BAYANIHAN’s services (Serbisyo ng Bayan for every Juan) will be available through a one-stop-shop kiosk where users can access LGU services.
SWEEP Special Awards and prizes were also given away to applications chosen by sponsors including Maynilad Water Services, Inc., One Meralco Foundation, and Ericsson Philippines. The Water Purifier and Automation app developed by the Holy Cross of Davao College was awarded the Maynilad Water Warrior Award; the Adamson University-entry “Charge” bagged the Meralco Energy LeadershipAward; while the Ericsson Networked Society Award went to Smart RESERVE of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila.
The ten finalists which fought it out for the top prize include #BAYANIHAN (Batangas State University); #aidPH: A Web and Mobile-based Information System for Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Councils (University of Cebu-Main Campus); Automated Landslide Monitoring System Summary (University of Southeastern Philippines); S-MART (Wesleyan University Philippines); Sentinel (Bulacan State University); Smart A.S.S. (Bulacan State University); Smart IMAGE (Bulacan State University); Smart iPrint (De La Salle Lipa); Smart Reserve (Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila); and Constello (Ateneo de Manila University).
Each of the 11th SWEEP Awards finalists get P30,000 and a trophy.
In the Open Competition Division, where non-SWEEP partner-schools were allowed for the first time to compete for the Smart DevNet Innovation Awards, the winners received an initial P10,000 in cash plus an opportunity to work with Smart DevNet to develop their products and an additional P40,000. The winners in this category include Textplus, The Adventure of Juan, Autofix, and SOS app, all designed and developed by the University of Southeastern Philippines.
An annual technology competition organized by wireless services provider Smart Communications, Inc., the SWEEP Awards is a part of telco’s Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program (SWEEP), the first-of-its-kind industry-academe linkage program having a network of 52 colleges and universities all over the country that aims to help produce industry-ready engineering and IT graduates.
This year’s SWEEP Awards’ theme, “Building Cloud-based Communities”, is in line with the growing importance of cloud-based services. This is the reason why SWEEP Awards continues to provide college students with the platform to develop innovative mobile solutions to address consumers’ needs using mobile and cloud technologies.
“At Smart, we champion innovation especially among the students, encouraging them to identify consumer pain points within their community, think outside the box, and design game-changing devices or applications anchored on mobile-enabled technologies,” said Ramon R. Isberto, Head of Public Affairs at Smart.
In his speech, Napoleon Nazareno, President and CEO at Smart, encourages students from different schools to develop innovative and technology-focused applications and devices as SWEEP opens the door to opportunities for a technology startup to become a successful business.
The awarding ceremony was held on February 12, 2015 at the Fairmont Hotel in Makati City.
