For the students of the Faculty of Informatics and Design at CPUT who entered the Sanlam Creativity for Progress Competition, Wednesday,15 October was one nail-biting day. After a morning and afternoon of presenting their business proposals to a judging panel, they received the news of who had won the R10 000 prize money.
The annual Creativity for Progress Competition, sponsored by Sanlam, is open to South Africa's foremost academic institutions and this year’s theme was “A better life for people in informal settlements"". Student teams of up to four members were required to conceptualise and present a project or business proposal that provides innovative solutions leading to improvement such as better living conditions, better medical facilities, access to water and access to electricity. The solutions had to be practical and possible to implement.
After weeks of hard work, all the students deserved to win but it was a team called United Four that was selected as the CPUT winners. The United Four team consists of Jason Pereira, Karel Strydom, Marjo Cilleirs and Bobby Moeng, all BTech Information Technology students.
“The 3 keywords that our proposal was based on are 'empowerment', 'wellbeing' and 'sustainability',“said Jason Pereira, team leader. “We looked at the problem of global warming and the impact it is having on harvest yields. We also found out in our research that fertilised has increased in price by 300% of the past 6 months. We offered an alternative which individual small subsistent farmers and gardeners could use to grow fruit and vegetables, making compost out of decomposable human waste.”
The team admitted that the biggest obstacle to the innovative idea is the ‘gross factor’ but as United Four member, Karel Strydom explained Asian people have been using human waste for thousands of years with great success according to their research.
“It is a free resource so cost implications are low and it is a way to ensure that human waste is not discarded into nearby rivers, a contaminating drinking and bathing water in many informal settlements.”
The judging panel included Prof Johannes Cronjé, Dean of the Faculty of Informatics and Design, Bart Verveckken, CV Botha, Dr David Boonzaier and Roelf Mulder all of CPUT. Eugene Grobler, and Danie Viljoen joined the judging panel from Sanlam
The next step for United Four is to compete against the other 15 teams selected from the other participating universities in the national heat of the competition where 4 semi-finalists will be chosen. Should they clinch the top prize they stand to win R100 000 for the team and R150 000 for the faculty. The other 3 finalist teams will each receive R30 000 and the faculties R50 000 each.
As for practicality and sustainability, Strydom said, “The challenge lies in convincing people, and we would like to do further research to see what the perceptions of people are.“
The Faculty of Informatics and Design is convinced that if any team could unite a plan and perception making it practical, it is the United Four.
By Monique Boucher
Written by CPUT News
Email:
