Student Teams from Singapore and Temasek Polytechnic Emerge Winners at the Global Final of the Huawei ICT Competition 2019-2020

[Singapore, 8 December 2020] Three innovative teams from Singapore Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic have emerged winners at the Global Final of the Huawei ICT Competition 2019-2020. The winning innovations addressed Singapore’s rapidly ageing population as well as help mitigate the increased frequency of wildfires because of climate change.

This is the fifth edition of the annual Huawei global ICT competition. Since its inception in June 2019, the competition has attracted nearly 150,000 students from more than 2,000 colleges and universities in over 82 countries.

Singapore Polytechnic’s team of Nashita Fatima, Chen Zihan and Fang Qian walked away with the Grand Prize in the Innovation Competition and the TECH4ALL Social Contribution Award. Their project, Forever-Smart Glasses, is focused on helping dementia patients improve their family relationships by helping them recognise family members using Huawei’s AIoT technology and cloud service integrated into the Forever-Smart Glasses. In addition to the glasses, the team also developed a Your Helper app with a built-in GPS positioning system, which helps track the elderly and alerts family members when their elderly is lost.

“During our research, we discovered that there are many wonderful AIoT products designed to increase people’s quality of life. However, these products are not targeted to the elderly. We were inspired by a TV show called ”Forget Me Not Cafe“ in which five elderly waiters with mild cognitive impairment form an "unforgettable family" to run a Chinese restaurant where there is a probability of serving the wrong dishes to customers. This show plus smart glasses technology motivated us to create a wearable AIoT device for Alzheimer’s suffers, so that they won’t forget their loved ones so easily,” said Fang Qian, 20, leader of the all-girls team from Singapore Polytechnic.

From left to right: Chen Zihan, Nashita Fatima, and Fang Qian

The elder care theme was also adopted by Temasek Polytechnic’s team of Andrew Tan Yong Jun, Wong Yao Hui and Caleb Lee. Falls are the second leading cause of unintentional deaths and the team created a system using HUAWEI CLOUD’s OBS, ModelArts, DIS Stream and RDS for MySQL to detect when an elderly person falls. The system can be integrated into hospital or home CCTVs or IoT devices to help monitor blind spots and alert care workers or family members if their elderly falls.

“In the event of a fall, the system immediately alerts the appropriate staff or family member through an IoT device. Shortening response times to falls is critical as it can save lives, improve response rates and minimise serious injury to the elderly,” said Wang Yao Hui, 19, from Temasek Polytechnic. “The essence of our system is the predictive model powered by Huawei. It can be trained and deployed to reach a broader audience. This system can also be integrated into existing CCTVs, using only software which saves resources.”

Climate change was a key concern addressed by Singapore Polytechnic’s team of Cheong Wai Khin, Khor Kah Seng and Tan Xin Ying. Their Intelligent Wildfire Mitigation System is a cloud based, serverless system that automates the process of detecting a forest fire and allows mitigation measures to be applied, by generating a simulation of how the fire might spread using a prediction model. The wireless connection and a serverless architecture aim to maximise efficiency within areas affected by wildfires. It leverages Huawei’s cloud and AIoT solutions, enabling cost efficiency on a pay-per-use service rate. The model can also be customised with data from other regions, allowing for adaptability and scalability. It provides an estimation of fire spread rate, enabling early and more accurate planning for mitigation measures and reducing environmental and financial damage, among other adverse impacts.

“We are thrilled with the creativity and the inclusive heart of young Singapore talents, and proud to help these seeds of future ascend to the top of the world,” said Nicholas Ma, Chief Executive Officer of Huawei International. “As we accelerate into a digitalised post-pandemic world, it has never been so important to nurture our young talents that have a sustainable, inclusive mind-set. Huawei ICT Competition showcased our continuous efforts to upskill and groom the local talent ecosystem to become more digitally inclusive. This lays the foundation for Huawei’s work with young talent especially in our upcoming flagship programme Seeds for the Future in collaboration with IMDA. We will continue working with our local partners and institutions of higher learning to create a healthy ICT talent ecosystem by building talent alliances and communicating the value of talent to  ensure that we working towards becoming a Smart Nation together.”

Despite the ongoing global pandemic, this year's Huawei ICT Competition demonstrated its ability to bring people together online through at even larger scale to showcase more incredible achievements. The company expects to certify one million certified ICT professionals across the globe by 2024 as part of its efforts to drive intelligent and digital transformations across industries, and to ultimately bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.