University Of Ghana Students Top IBM/AIRTEL Competition

VC with winning team.Solomon Botchway-Laryea,
Nana Ama Ahenkan Boakye-Ansah and Ohene Osei-Boateng

Students from the University of Ghana have won the first and third places respectively in this year’s IBM/Airtel competition.

The winning team “SONA” receiveda certificate, a Nokia phone, an Airtel chip with GH¢30 air time, a modem with unlimited data bundle for one year and a two-month internship with IBM. IBM/Airtel will further help the winning teams to develop their ideas into fully working applications which can be marketed.

IBM/Airtel also promised to establish an IBM/Airtel Innovation Laboratory at the University of Ghana, which would enable students engage in mobile application development.

The competition which featured teams from the University of Ghana, Ashesi University and University of Cape Coast started last year as a local contest for students at Legon but was later extended to other universities, with the aim of encouraging students to develop innovative technologies to address the challenges that the country faces on a daily basis.

This year’s contest focused on higher education, learning and management and students were to devicetechnological solutions that can help improve learning and management in higher education based on IBM/Airtel tools.

The Department of Computer Science provided support to the students in refining their ideas and presentations for the contest. The Head of Department, Dr. Ferdinand Katsriku was exceptionally proud of the students’ achievements and was optimistic that the contest would empower the teams to explore their full potentials and take the opportunity of a new world of business that has been opened for them to develop and market their ideas.

As a way of giving back to the University, the SONA team has proposed a mobile application that wouldenable university authorities send notices to students via their mobile devices.

The LUMINA team, which placed third also proposed an application that will synchronize a student’s time table or calendar with a map of UG to serve as a reminder as well as a directional map on campus.

The winning team, ‘SONA’ from the University of Ghana had Solomon Botchway-Laryea, Nana Ama Ahenkan Boakye-Ansah and Ohene Osei-Boateng as team members.

The ‘LUMINA’ team that placed third was also from the University of Ghana. The team comprised Osae Dade NiiOsae, Manu Kwabena and Collins Thomas.

Hearty Congratulations to the SONA and LUMINA teams. The University of Ghana is proud of you.