HCM CITY — A smart mattress that helps the elderly change posture and direction is one of three winning projects in the Engineering Projects in the Community Service Programme, launched in January by USAID.

The DYNAMIC team composed of students at the Đà Nẵng University of Science and Technology worked together to create the smart mattress.

Team member Võ Văn Quốc said the students conducted a survey of the elderly with joint or bone disease and patients who had lost movement due to accidents who were patients at two Đà Nẵng hospitals.  

Quốc said the patients’ families had to stay with them at all times to monitor their situation and help them move.

The smart mattress, which allows them to move without assistance, meets quality standards.

The Industrial University of HCM City won two awards, one for a remote garden system that can be managed via an internet connection and another for a SmartPlan project.

The Engineering Projects Community Service Programme in Việt Nam was launched by USAID’s Building University-Industry Learning and Development through Innovation and Technology Alliance, Arizona State University, and Dow Chemical Company.

The programme is an internationally recognised multi-disciplinary, social entrepreneurship challenge that helps students from fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics develop a collaborative mindset and technical skills to brainstorm, design, prototype and test their engineering-based solutions for local challenges.

Four universities were selected to pilot the programme, including Đà Nẵng University of Science and Technology, HCM City University of Technology, Industrial University of HCM City, and Lạc Hồng University in Đồng Nai Province. VNS