Students showcase their innovative products at the event. Photo: ASU

HCM CITY — Students from engineering technology universities in Vietnam have developed innovative projects following the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) model to provide engineering solutions for real world problems, including supporting the vulnerable, sustainability, agricultural productivity, plastic recycling, reducing CO2 emission and green energy.

Carrying their innovations from the Maker to Entrepreneur curriculum, the student teams advanced their EPICS projects into viable products and shared their early market traction at the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Challenge Showcase.

The showcase was co-organized by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Building University-Industry Learning and Development through Innovation and Technology (BUILD-IT) Alliance and the Dow Vietnam STEM Program in HCM City on April 5.

The programme brought opportunities for students to improve independence, creativity, determination, business savvy, and communication skills to take their idea from inception to complete the pitch deck and present to the panel of judges.

In the first round of the Innovation Showcase, 28 student teams showcased their innovative prototypes to a panel of judges from government, industry, and academia. The top 10 teams with the highest scores proceeded to the Presentation round, in which the students demonstrated how engineers can learn to use market forces to prove that their early-stage products have market demand.

Team Euphoria from the Da Nang University of Technology won the first prize award with a project that designed remote power quality data collection to monitor power-quality data in real time, predict power consumption, and ensure power quality and power system operation.

Team MechaLog from HCM City University of Technology won second prize with a project developing a low cost, automatic camera that will measure traffic density, then calculate a suitable waiting time. The result of this project aims to reduce CO2 emission, while also lower human resources and energy cost, and improve overall on-road experience.

Team O.L.M.A from the HCM City University of Technology won third prize with an Algae Lamp project, which focuses on the efficient absorption of CO2 by algae, house illumination and oxygen production.

Team BKM-AI from the Da Nang University of Technology won the second third prize with a project to build a robot applying AI, especially facial recognition for management and monitoring of areas that require high security.

Team Goldstein Birds from the Da Nang University of Technology won the award for the best female-led project with a project of creating a board product recycled from bagasse which can replace natural material products.

For the sixth year in a row, the BUILD-IT Alliance, implemented by Arizona State University and partnered with the Dow Vietnam STEM Program, has joined forces to support student-led innovation and bring industry-linked applied projects in innovation, entrepreneurship, and research to undergraduates across Vietnamese universities. To date, Dow Vietnam has leveraged over US$200,000 to provide more than 1,000 opportunities for students to gain the confidence and capacity to engineer social innovations. VNS