A project designed by an Interior Design alumna earned her a place in the finals of the 2022 edition of Prototypes for Humanity, recently held in Dubai.
Bronwen Smith developed the Integrated Sustainability Awareness System, an online platform for collecting information relating to a household's consumption of energy and resources, as part of her fourth-year dissertation project at CPUT.
Prototypes for Humanity (previously called the Dubai Global Graduation Show) is the most diverse assembly of innovations that have the power to change the world, with programmes and activities to raise awareness of global problems, celebrate solutions, and catalyse action for positive social and environmental impact.
Bronwen and senior lecturer Colleen Cocotos recently travelled to Dubai where they attended the exhibition and the final awards announcement by Her Highness Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
“I felt truly honoured and excited. It would be wonderful if this Sustainability Awareness System can receive further attention and possibly be developed into a marketable idea that will impact humanity. I have always been motivated to make people aware of how to live a more sustainable lifestyle,” said Bronwen.
Explaining how the platform works, Bronwen said information is collected through a smartphone application, which feeds into an online database.
“The information is analysed to generate understandable statistics that are freely available on the website. Anyone can access the statistics to track the impact of the system and to see how different areas measure up to one another.”
She continued: “Through encouraged regular interaction and a gamified or reward element to the user experience, consumers will learn how to make changes in their daily lives, making informed choices to enable them to have a reduced impact on the planet.”
The proud CPUT graduate, who hails from Plumstead, is completing a Master’s in Interior Architecture – Adaptive Re-use at Hasselt University in Belgium.
Cocotos said “Bronwen’s design was competing against Master’s and PhD submissions, she should be proud of having been selected, as a finalist in such a prestigious competition.”
“I thought that it was a genius idea, and she deserves to get further recognition for the development of the Sustainability Awareness System.”
Written by Ilse Fredericks
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