Innovators Race

Fontys Information and Communication Technology
You are here: Home Portfolio 2015 December 2015 Innovators Race

Students Steve Thijssen and Julia van der Heijden to pass first qualifying round Innovators Race, here we come Paris and San Francisco!

Students Steve Thijssen (ICT & Business) and Julia van der Heijden (ICT & Technology) were selected at the 1st qualifying round of the Innovators Race organised by Capgemini (our new Partner in Education). They had to pitch their idea in front of a professional jury in the qualifying round. Subsequently they had to participate in a thrilling one hour challenge. This way the organisation could see which teams were able to achieve something useful within a short time. After a suspenseful qualifying round, they were selected.

What is the Innovators Race

During the Innovators Race, it's all about innovation, technology and sustainability. Student teams consisting of 2 persons from 6 different countries are competing for a place in the finale in Paris in March 2016. The winner will take home $25,000 and a unique innovation experience at Capgemini in San Francisco.

Students work on a challenge. This challenge is organised together with the Public Prosecutor. The challenge comprises of the developing of a concept that can make the ZSM method more interactive through multimedia and digital tools. Additionally there is the task of finding a better way of documenting decisions and communication towards suspects and victims.

"Each country has its own goal. In the Netherlands, it really focuses on the Public Prosecutor. Petty crime, vandalism etc. are often processed by the Public Prosecutor. This is very time consuming however. Time that is better spent on larger cases. The idea is to open offices in which lawyers, police and help for victims (all parties working together to solve a case) meet to solve smaller scale crime. This could be done within a day and the Public Prosecutor could be left out", says Steve. Together, he and Julia thought of a concept to make this more interactive with novel aspects.

The solution

"Just imagine you have an office in which everyone who's working on a case is working at the same table. At the crime scene, the police gives QR codes to both the victim and the offender. Through this QR code they enter a special app environment. Here they can tell their story and visualise. The information is subsequently passed on to an interactive table at the office. This table makes it easy to open files", says Julia van der Heijden. "We want to make it even more interactive by working with a hologram projection. Up until now we have always focused on existing technology that is considered user friendly. Of course we would like a better processes".

Golden combination

This duo's enthusiasm is crystal clear. "Really a golden combination, a B and a T student! We just complement each other extremely well." "Steve is prone to taking his wild ideas a bit too far, so sometimes I have to put his two feet back on the ground", Julia laughs. "But he's great at Pitching! We really complement each other very well".

And now..

Steve and Julia will get the chance to actually work out their solution for the Public Prosecutor. In December a video will be made of their project. This video has to bring in a lot of votes in February 2016. The two countries who get the most votes will achieve a place in the finale in Paris in March 2016. If you win this finale? Then you're going to San Francisco. When asked what they're expecting, they answer: "San Francisco here we comeeee!"

More information:

http://innovatorsrace.com

https://www.om.nl/actueel/nieuwsberichten/@24445/factsheet-zsm/

Tags: International Events