24 Nov 2019

Participants at the 2019 smart Green Makeathon have praised the four-day event for giving them an opportunity to connect and co-create with different individuals to improve their innovations in the future.

They said this during the official closing ceremony of the makeathon on November 21 which culminated with the unveiling of two prototype electrical and solar powered cars. In the backdrop of the main event which captivated and held the attention of many Batswana, other participants made presentations on creative innovations which they had been working on for four days.

According to one participant, Ms Refilwe Zibochwa, students who had been divided into working groups worked to create smart thinking systems which could be used in and around the home to solve everyday problems while some created smart farming systems which were capable of regulating their environments.

Ms Zibochwa said she and her team had made, as a smart terrestrial vehicle which in concept could be used to manage human wildlife interaction by using an Algorithm based computing system to detect component data in order to warn residents when wildlife come into human built zones.

She said the project was inspired by the recent human life conflict that had resulted in tragedies for Batswana living in tourism designated zones.

Mr Leno Seitei, who worked with Ms Zibochwa on the project said the vehicle had a camera that would be used to provide real-time data footage to a remote monitoring station, which would then send alerts to the area under threat. 

He said the vast knowledge that the team combined from different educational backgrounds such as computing, network security and computer forensics including computing with software had been beneficial ingredients in coming up with the projects.

Mr Seitei further noted that the execution of the project demonstrated the abundance of knowledge in Botswana, which could be put together to solve problems while creating value and stimulating entirely new industries for the country.

He further noted that he and his team mates would like to carry on with the project because it has a lot of potential.

Other fascinating projects included the design of medical management software interfaces which would be able to reduce downtime in medical processes in the country. ends