Winners announced - 4 Universities win Awards

Students from the Universities of Sydney, Western Sydney, NSW and Wollongong won 2012 NASSCOM Innovation Student Awards. Projects from University of Technology, Sydney, Australian National University, University of Sydney and University of NSW were Highly Commended. Each of the Winners received a trophy and $1,000 prize. The Awards are supported by the Australia India Business Council (AIBC). and sponsored by Fragomen, Wipro and Advantage Wollongong. See Media Release and click here for a list of the Judges.

Winners of the 2012 NASSCOM Innovation Student Awards with Hon. Sachin Pilot (center), Hon. Greg Pearce (2nd right) Mr. Toole (2nd left), Mr Som Mittal, President of NASSCOM andMr Anu Agrawal, Chairman of NASSCOM Australia

The inaugural NASSCOM Innovation Students Awards were presented by The Hon. Sachin Pilot, Minister of State in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India, The Hon Greg Pearce, NSW Minister of Finance, and Mr Paul Toole, NSW MP and Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Premier at the CeBIT ICT Celebration Dinner on Wednesday 23rd May at Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour.

The Awards recognise and award innovation in Australia's Universities. They are a great opportunity to showcase innovative solutions to the rest of the world, especially India, the Partner Country at CeBIT 2012. 12 Nominations were received from 6 Universities

NASSCOM Australia is the Australian chapter of NASSCOM. Its members have currently invested upwards of $100M to setup more than 20 development centres in Australia and currently employ more than 7000 people in Australia. They have strong links with many universities in Australia to recruit students for global projects, run student internships programs and have established scholarships.

If you would like further information or would like to receive an Entry Form for the 2013 Awards, please send us an email.

The categories in the 2012 Awards were IT Innovation and IT-enabled Business Innovation.

2 Winners - IT Innovation

Compressed Sensing Imager    
ICT Research Institute University of Wollongong
Students: Alex Seng, Matthew Kitchener, Wenbin Shao, Jie Yang, Zhenxin Feng

The Compressed Sensing Imager (CSI) is a low-cost and efficient next-generation radar system for "seeing" through walls and opaque materials. The system utilizes state-of-the-art Compressed Sensing and Image Processing approaches to non-destructively detect, classify, and track targets behind a visually impenetrable structure. Imaging through obstacles is of high practical interest for many law enforcement, military, and civil applications.

Examples include search-and-rescue operations or identification between hostages and suspects in a crime scene. For resource exploration and infrastructure maintenance, the system can also reveal underground objects non-intrusively. Overall, the CSI is an intelligent real-time solution for high-resolution imaging.

Judges' Citation: "The CSI Solution addresses a key issue faced by defence, surveillance and rescue forces in seeing through barriers such as walls and opaque materials in search and rescue mission. The solution will also benefit the mining industry and also industries where there are assets underground (e.g. utilities, rail etc). The solution has been prototyped and available in a hand held brief case tool to be mounted on a car for various applications and use. The main component of the innovation is the software that allows the data from the radar to easily convert and display, removing the need for multiple receivers as designed in current systems.

The presentation was focused on the key technology and benefits and the potential business model for the future. The team has collaborated with universities in the United States to come up with this research and solution and have prototyped this in various locations. They have various patents and patents pending for their solution and will be taking this to a commercial solution soon. The judging panel was impressed not only by the innovative approach to solving the problem, but also by strong technology and patent registration to take the lead in this space of solving a critical issue."

MyPower Energy Management Platform    
School of Information Technologies University of Sydney
Students: Waiho Wong, Mahboobeh Moggaddam

MyPower Energy Management Platform offers a technically and economically feasible solution that can contribute to a 10% reduction in the electricity consumption in homes. Power consumption by major appliances such as washing machines, clothes driers, refrigerators, microwaves etc. in participating households will be continuously monitored using custom-designed smart plugs equipped with GSM units. The actual consumption by each appliance will be transmitted to a cloud data warehouse by SMS every 30 minutes.

The finely-grained power consumption data over time will be used to enable households to make sensible decisions on operating times and optimal replacement schedules of the appliances. Aggregate level data will also be made available to utility companies, appliance manufacturers, and appropriate government agencies to devise energy conversation strategies and to encourage advanced energy analytics for greenhouse gas reduction.

Judges' Citation: "MyPower is an example of practical innovation in taking a number of proven technology components and tackling a pressing issue. As power bills drive upwards and consumers are struggling to find ways of managing their demand, the MyPower solution brings an immediate and practical solution that can quickly be deployed. Utilising cloud technologies the MyPower solution provides the consumer with an understanding of their power consumption and further added-value in helping them look for alternative appliances which may have a lower cost impact on their consumption.

We see that the solution is a 'here and now' innovation but with an eye on further utilising wireless technologies to provide a range of options for data capture and also downstream in working with partners to exploit the value of the consumption data."

2 Winners - IT-Enabled Business Innovation

Confufish    
School of Computer Science & Engineering University of NSW
Students: Brad Lorge, Aimee Lowth

The system has been developed to help manage distribution in the developing world. Distribution stands as one of the last major obstacles to a world without hunger. This system takes thousands of dollars of conventional equipment and replaces it with a mobile phone. The system provides a huge amount of flexibility in its design and enables for a tailored solution in a complicated space.

Confufish helps manage and optimize the distribution process across multiple charities, as well as provide a cheap mechanism for a driver to complete individual deliveries.

Judges' Citation: "Confufish exploits the KIS (Keep it Simple) guiding principle in providing a 'lite' logistics solution for NGO's who provide critical aide in quite difficult logistical areas. The simple model of 'a man, a phone and a truck' show how agencies who are trying to minimise their internal costs, can partner with a service provider who shares the same low-cost mindset and who can deliver some critical logistical capabilities in an effective manner with a very light technology footprint.

The syndication of the contributions from the subscribing agencies will lead to further development of vital logistical capabilities to drive a huge transformation in quality of service to the recipient countries and encourage even further donations as the donors see the impact achieved."

STEP ON IT PROGRAM™    
School of Computing & Mathematics University of Western Sydney
Student: Dr. Avtar Singh Gill

The STEP ON IT PROGRAM™ provides users with a mobile active lifestyle program that builds on an existing body composition analyser and clinical data acquisition unit(SK-X80) with means to assess rapid personal body measurements at home(small personal scales UWB enabled) and worksites, which is then transferred by UWB wireless technology to their iPhone or Android Smartphones, or website. It is also a tool to monitor groups of individuals for health screening or assessment e.g. schools, retirement villages, armed forces, private organisations, gyms, airports.

The data gathered of their body composition, weight and body mass index with trend reports of key markers will alert at risk users to opt for diet plan, exercise or both and view their progress over time. Users have the option to include regular medications on trend charts. Diet or exercise plans have reminders and aids to motivate. The benefits are easy access to users or clients of results and analysis, self management with option of chatSmart dieticians or personal fitness trainers, review, encouragement and rewards. Finally the benefit is also in cohort studies and data mining analysis of perceived benefits in economic and health terms in the community over time.

Judges' Citation: "eHealth is an area of internet and mobile computing which will look to bring great advantage to older members of our community and to people in rural and remote areas. Uptake of traditional health services is growing at over 20% per annum - and government funding is currently growing @ 5% per annum - the gap will require innovative and low cost eHealth solutions to help deliver the services to end users. This innovative solution is looking to provide real time feedback to the user on key health measurements and allow for this to be shared readily with healthcare professionals."