26/11/2022
Zim wins 5 gold medals at India-Africa hackathon
Five Zimbabwean students have bagged five gold medals at the UNESCO India Africa Hackathon that was being held at the Gautam Buddha University in Uttar Pradesh from November 22.
The event encouraged collaboration between students’ communities of India and African nations to develop ingenious and out-of-the-box strategies to tackle a variety of problems in various sectors. The hackathon allows the young innovators to come together and find solutions for social, environmental and technical problems faced by the collaborating nations. It also serves as the foundation for creating potential start-ups.
The gold medal winners are Nyasha Mandizvidza of the Great Zimbabwe University, whose Health and Hygine- themed project was titled, 'Under-utilisation and lack of mechanism of taking action based on partogram'.
Musindo Kahonde of the Midlands State University also came through with his project, 'Self care and routine check ups/ investigations for early identification of the complications of the diabetes mellitus'.
National University of Science and Technology's Daniel Chembesi had an education-themed project, a game-based digital learning application that teaches children about cyber security.
Frank Makeba of the Chinhoyi University of Technology also scooped gold with his agriculture-themed project, an artificial-based contact centre for farmers which understands more than 100 languages.
Another student, Bester Nokuthaba Sibanda of the National University of Science and Technology, had a drinking water and sanitation-themed project titled, 'a geo-spatial tool to support in decision making for a range of sanitation interventions in the cityscape'.
A total 18 local students from different Zimbabwean universities attended the competition which is sponsored by UNESCO.
