With their ‘Global-Local’ Approach, Grade 11-12 Students Display Innovation and Technological Skills to Develop App for Smartphones and Desktops
Khalifa University of Science and Technology today announced that the winners of its Summer Challenge 2020 have skillfully combined both engineering and humanitarian perspectives to design ‘eDoctor’, an online system to connect patients with available doctors for consultation, without physically visiting the doctor’s premises.
Forty teams with a total of almost 200 students registered for the Khalifa University Summer Challenge 2020, thus demonstrating an impressive interest in solving an emerging problem amid COVID-19. From the 40 teams, 11 made it to the final stage of the challenge that encouraged students in Grades 11-12 from across the UAE to design the app for smartphones and desktops. The panel of judges evaluated the submissions based on criteria such as the number of supported information sources, communication response delays, versatility of implementation, user-friendliness including handling of ethics issues, doctor’s selection mechanism, and design aesthetics.
The top place winner was Future Youth, a team of four from Applied Technology High School, while the second position was awarded to the three-member team from Greenwood International School. The third slot went to Future Doctors, a four-member team – three from Al Naeem School, and one member from Applied Technology High School.
The fourth position was won by eRescue, a team of five, out of which four were from Al Manhal International Private School with one member from Al Nahda International School, while the fifth place went to Almualej, a four-member team from Um Al Arab School.
Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice-President, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, said: “The Khalifa University Summer Challenge 2020 is one of the innovation-related initiatives, launched during the COVID-19 pandemic to encourage involvement of high school students in critical thinking and scientific development. The projects submitted by students displayed their knowledge in STEM fields as well as highly-tuned social awareness during these challenging times. As a result they were able to design an online consultation system that could be suitable to anyone, not only in this region, but anywhere across the world. We are delighted that Khalifa University’s summer challenge has produced interest in youth to design such impactful innovations to tackle real world challenges such as the healthcare emergencies.”
The judges commended the students for their willingness to deal with both from the engineering and humanitarian angles, and create a viable solution to help the UAE community with worldwide impact, placing their approach in more of a ‘global-local’ perspective.
The Khalifa University Summer Challenge 2020 called for students to design the eDoctor system to prove its usefulness to urgent cases that cannot reach hospital, emergency cases that do not have doctors in an area, late-night emergencies, and for preliminary examination of patients.
While there was no bar on use of software, judges also looked for information exchange such as photo/video capturing, chatting, emailing, audio recording, GPS tracking, and emergency calls. Teams were also urged to incorporate additional features such as a real-time communication protocol, along with emergency level settings and uploading capabilities for combined analyses, reports or prescriptions.
Clarence Michael
English Editor Specialist
14 October 2020
