Innovating With Impact: FoodFriend by SIT Team Takes First Place at Dell Technologies’ InnovateFest 2023!
Team Pathway from SIT developed a mobile application that makes hawker dining experience more enjoyable for Persons With Intellectual Disability (PWIDs)
On 22 September 2023, Team Pathmakers from SIT was crowned the university champion at Dell Technologies’ inaugural InnovateFest 2023, walking away with a cash prize of $10,000. The competition finals, which was held at Dell Technologies’ Changi office, was graced by Guest of Honour, Mr Chan Chun Sing, Minister for Education.
The team came up with FoodFriend, a mobile application which enhances the hawker dining experience for Persons With Intellectual Disability (PWIDs) through user-friendly menus that were designed in collaboration with the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (MINDS). FoodFriend provides PWIDs with personalised, step-by-step and visual guidance on how to navigate, order and pay for their meals in a hawker centre setting.
The Dell Technologies InnovateFest 2023 is an inter-tertiary competition that aims to empower the next generation of technologists to develop innovative solutions that drive human progress in Singapore. Organised in partnership with MINDS, the competition was focused on social responsibility and giving back to the community. Participants from seven Institutes of Higher Learning were tasked to build solutions that incorporate emerging technologies – such as cloud native, multi-cloud, extended reality and AI/Machine Learning – to improve the lives of PWIDs in Singapore.
At SIT, Dell Technologies has made possible the Dell Book Prize in Cloud and Distributed Computing and the Dell Yearly Performance Award. The Book Prize recognises the top-scoring student of the Cloud and Distributing Computing Module offered under the Computing Science degree programme, while the Yearly Performance Award is given to a top-scoring Computing Science student at the end of their first year of study.
Mr Ryan Sim, an undergraduate student from the joint SIT and University of Glasgow Computing Science programme and main presenter of Team Pathway, was awarded the Dell Yearly Performance Award in Academic Year 2022/23.
More about the competition at SIT’s Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/SingaporeTech/posts/pfbid0Whh8g5BxBao5V7DFhXLh6rEGxDFowQKSgnuXHPpZwbcHXqb78iVe8QkchMK6jZoSl]