Dream IT

The ProjectB Challenge is a competition between groups of students in the last or second-last year of their IT study. The project challenges students to employ information technology to support people with a disability in daily life or even improve their quality of life. The term disability herein may be considered an elastic concept. It not only includes people with a handicap but also chronically ill people who are hindered by their disease in their daily lives.

Program ProjectB

ProjectB is part of the academic year of 2015-2016. First of all you assemble a team of four to six people. Through brainstorm sessions you come up with an innovative idea on how IT can be used to the benefit of people with a chronic disease. This first phase ended on 16 January 2016. The proposals were assessed by a jury and the 10 best ideas went on to the second phase. This period ends in the first half of June 2016.

In the second phase, the students worked out these ideas into a working prototype or service. While doing this, they received supervision from two coaches from Sogeti. The award ceremony takes place at the end of June.

Fontys Hogeschool ICT represented by two teams

Two teams were chosen to take part in this second phase! One of these teams is Dream IT. Daisy Ambaum, 4th year student ICT & Business, enthusiastically tells about this project and about taking part in ProjectB. She was the one suggesting taking part in this project. "Project B is about employing technology to make the life of people with a disability or chronic disease more pleasant. That may sound harsh, but that's the truth". According to Daisy their team is very well guided, "You get assigned two coaches of Sogeti and there are regular intervisions in which all teams get together. This too is a nice chance to do some networking," Daisy says enthusiastically.

Facing the facts

In total, 6 teams were selected, among which were 2 teams of Fontys Hogeschool ICT. On average the teams consist of 5 people. But why participate? "I have experienced myself that it's hard when you cannot do the things you want to do because of a disability. My right arm doesn't fully function. That really makes you face the facts People from Sogeti were so enthusiastic when they came to tell about ProjectB that I couldn't ignore it. Helping people with knowledge you acquire during your studies, isn't that great?

Siemie and Koko

Dream IT develops an application for kids between 4 and 8 years old. If they have to be admitted to hospital, then this application takes away their anxiety and makes it possible for them to go on playing, by means of adventures and games "I will not go into detail, in the end it has to stay a surprise," says Daisy. Anyway, Siemie and Koko are central. Siemie is a boy from the hospital, Koko is a parrot. Together with them you can go out on adventures, in which social media will also be involved. "We have asked for feedback from 24 kids and in doing so we hope to develop a good application."

Fierce competition

Whether Daisy regards the other team of Fontys Hogeschool ICT as competition or as a partner? She's quite clear about that: "No, that's cut-throat competition. However, our project is a more emotional one, that's one of the plus-points of this project. We are highly motivated, but I think the other teams are too. The whole project is just really cool and what we're doing is just great. That may sound arrogant, but it's true. We really give it our all." No shortage of plus points. And what is more: it's inexpensive to realise (once the prototype is there).

Future

What about the future? "We really want to implement it. How exactly we're going to do that is something we'll have to investigate. But there's plenty of time. We're also going to participate in the 2nd preliminary of the ICTalent Awards en we're hoping to finish high in this competition."

Dream IT: good luck!

More information: http://www.ontmoetsiemie.nl