We are excited to announce the winners of our annual Hack Jam competition.
The event is hosted by the Employability Centre and is open to all enrolled Vossies. The competition aims to foster innovative thinking, problem-solving and collaboration amongst students from different faculties. Participating students must present innovative ideas that solve real-world problems.
Vossies must use the knowledge and skills they have gained in the classroom and develop unique solutions to issues they see in everyday life. This year’s topics included cyber security, mental health, accessible education, youth unemployment, township safety, digital conferencing experience and financial literacy.
The competition took place over three rounds, with eliminations occurring over each round. The final teams had to build and showcase their prototype and present it to the judges who then selected the winners.
Second Place
Green Tech Solution from Bedfordview
Members: Lea Thumbiran (Data Science), Mackyle Naidoo (Robotics) and Tonisha Govender (Software Engineering).
Topic: Accessible Education Through a Smart Aquaponics System
CyberSentinels chose the theme of cybersecurity and walked away as winners for their app CyberBuddy.
“After doing some research about internet users and cyber security we found that an alarming number of users still fall victim to cyberattacks that have been around since the dawn of the internet,” says Saskian Louw, a Software Engineering student and the lead developer and programmer of the CyberSentinels group.
“We deemed this an important issue to address, since users are still not protecting themselves appropriately against cyberattacks from 20 years ago, while advancements in cyberattack-techniques are being made every day.”
The team thus created CyberBuddy, a mobile application designed to educate users on the dangers of cyberattacks and how to protect against them, including a password checker, email spoofing detector and an integrated cyber security-related news page that provides up-to-date information and articles on the realm of cyber security.
The top two teams will receive enrolment in the School of Entrepreneurship’s 4Life Entrepreneurship Programme in 2024. The winning team also received R5 000 from Thoughtware. In addition, each member of the top three teams was awarded a cash prize.
A huge congrats to the winning teams! We are excited to see what you do in the future.
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