Harvey, from Dublin scooped the ‘Future Maker’ prize at the seventh annual Coolest Projects International 2018 in Dublin on Saturday for his project Intelligentia. The Future Maker prize, sponsored by Liberty Global celebrates young people who use their coding and creative technology skills to bring about a positive social impact and change in their communities.
“Every year 9,179 people go missing in Ireland alone. A large percentage of these are at-risk people(the elderly and ill people). What if we could quickly locate these people before it’s too late? Approximately 1.2 trillion photos were taken worldwide in 2017 and this number is just growing annually. Intelligentia is an app which when downloaded will passively monitor your photos and tries to identify missing persons in the background. When the system locates these people it instantly notifies the relevant authorities. Who knows? Maybe your selfie could save a life.” – Harvey, describing his award winning project.
Other young people can learn how to develop their own social impact projects using the newly released Future Makers Social Enterprise Bento Box.
Harvey was amongst the next generation of digital innovators showcasing their work at Coolest Projects International 2018. Organised by the CoderDojo Foundation, the event brought together over 1,000 young people from Ireland and around the world who have had an idea and made it a reality using the skills they have learnt at their local CoderDojo, Code Club, or Raspberry Jam.
An expert panel of judges awarded prizes in five project categories as well as five additional special prizes, including:
Best International Prize
Andrei, Ioana, David Daniel and Bianca Laura from Romania won the Best International prize, sponsored by the CoderDojo Foundation, for their project AZ-Tech Teddy. They developed their projected when “confronted with the problem of obesity, so prevalent among the younger population, our team proposes as a solution a “friend” for the child to take care of. By carefully tracking the eating habits of their E-health teddy bear, the kids will learn to pay closer attention to what they are eating.” The project uses a Raspberry Pi connected to a mobile phone app, which tracks the time spent online and the child’s fitness habits.
Best Education & Learning prize
Adriana from Cork won the Best Education & Learning prize for her project Wonder Fair, which is based on the book called “Wonder” by RJ Palacio. “Wonder Fair creates an area where people can explore what it might be like to have learning or physical differences. The hope is that by understanding what it might be like to be different we can all be more kind to each other” noted Adriana when asked to describe her project idea. The award was sponsored by DCU.
Openet Innovator prize
Freddie from Wales won the Openet Innovator prize for his face recognition door entry system project. The system is for people with dementia. Freddie highlighted that “‘Safe’ people can register their face so that when they come to the door they will be recognised. The system will then tell the homeowner who is at the door and whether to let them in or not.
Best Female Led prize
Aisling from Dublin won the Best Female Led prize, sponsored by Mastercard, for her project Girls do Code. The website is aimed at raising awareness for girl’s coding and to encourage girls to begin programming. It includes the locations of all the CoderDojo clubs around the world for girls to attend, as well as a list of Famous Women in Tech to inspire girls to begin coding. It utilizes HTML, CSS, JavaScript and API calls from the CoderDojo Foundations own platform!
Best Original Design Prize
Radu who travelled from Romania to present his project won the Best Original Design prize for his game, The Cult. Radu described his game as “a world where the magic and technology are bound together and the ancient nephilims are still among us.” He developed the game in Unreal Engine 4.15, while some characters and character parts were made in Sculptris. Additionally you can chose to play the game in the first or third person. The award was sponsored by Blizzard Entertainment.
Thousands of people visited the family friendly event which comprised hands-on activities for young and old including programming inspired escape rooms, flying drones, VR headset testing, creating wearable technology pieces and a giant circuit board puzzle as well as demonstrations, workshops and panel discussions.
You can see winners of the category prizes here, and photos from the awards ceremony itself here. Thanks to all our sponsors, the volunteers and all the young people who participated for making Coolest Projects International so special.