The ‘Geek Gods’ and ‘ISS Geeks’ impressed judges this year with their winning mobile applications at iCreate Mobility Challenge.
It was clearly a year for our geeks when winners of this year’s iCreate Mobility Challenge were announced. Among them were two ISS Master of Technology teams: the ISS Geeks who emerged third in the Mobile Category, and the Geek Gods who bagged InfoComm Development Authority of Singapore’s Second Prize. The prize presentation ceremony was held on 6 August 2013.
Dining ‘C2C’ style
In their attempt to make the campus dining a happy, simple and easy experience, the ISS Geeks had come up with a practical mobile concept called ‘NUS Connect to Canteen’ or NUS C2C.
Explaining the idea, team captain (Looi Chee Foong) said: “NUS C2C addresses the issue of long queues in campus canteens during peak hours. As canteen users, we spend more time queuing for food and drinks, than consuming them. From the stallholder’s perspective, there’s risk of loosing customers who aren’t willing to wait. It just gets worse when someone in the queue places a bulk order, and the stallholder has to juggle with cooking and packing those orders before a long line of customers.
“With the NUS C2C, we hope to establish a virtual communications platform between NUS canteen users and the various stallholders. For users, the app contains a canteen directory, the menus of its various food stalls, as well as food ordering, delivery and takeaway features. At the same time, canteen operators can update their menus, view order summaries and track customer transactions at the touch of their smartphones.”
The “wow” factor, according to ISS Geeks, is a feature where users can either assign friends to pick up their food orders, or identify and pay other users to do so. “How often has hunger struck when you’re rushing assignments or have no time to eat? We’re pretty confident that NUS C2C will become the most valuable mobile companion on campus yet!” (Chee Foong) added.
ISS Geeks
From left: Bala Manikandan Sivagnanam; Pakhale Deepak; Venkatesh Dasari; Looi Chee Foong
For their entry, (Chee Foong) and his teammates Bala Manikandan Sivagnanam, Pakhale Deepak and Venkatesh Dasari each walked away with a Samsung Galaxy Tab and a trophy.
NUSBB: The go-to platform for campus classifieds
When it comes to buying and selling, locating lost and found items, or finding roommates on campus, team Geek Gods understood the challenges. To date, the foursome has yet to find a centralised e-platform where they could post, browse or respond to NUS student classifieds.
“When we walk around Kent Ridge, what we see are unsightly advertisements – tiny scraps of paper with phone numbers on tabs that you pull off,” team leader (Hemanth Sukumaran) observed.
“Besides ruining the aesthetics of our beautiful surroundings, such advertisements have limited reach – say, the bus-stop where the ad was pasted, or in the residents’ hall where you live,” he added.
The Geek Gods’ vision thus, was to create a mobile bulletin board that would integrate, on a campus-wide basis, personal notices on buying/selling of second-hand textbooks, lost and found items, or finding fellow students to share or look for accommodation near NUS. As an added feature, the app could come with push notifications to keep busy students abreast of their transactions, or provide them with real-time information on room rentals.
“Most importantly,” said Hemanth, “the people who use NUSBB, or NUS Bulletin Board, can enjoy greater peace of mind. The app is confined to the community of NUS students, so you know you’re targeting an audience that’s roughly in the same boat as you.”
Geek Gods
From left: Hemanth Sukumaran; Vallakuruchi Jayabal Arun Raja; Mohammed Althaf; Thilak Duraipandi Thangapandian
For their innovative application, Hemanth and his friends, Mohammed Althaf, Thilak Duraipandi Thangapandian and Vallakuruchi Jayabal Arun Raja have won themselves a cash prize of S$500.
The iCreate Mobility Challenge is an annual competition encouraging the development of mobile applications that improve student life at NUS. To date about 50 mobile applications have been created for student by students.
For details on the competition and this year’s winners, visit http://icreate.nus.edu.sg.
This article is first published in NUS-ISS quarterly e-newsletter, Issue 4 (Oct-Dec 2013).