The fourth annual Innovation Challenge opened on Friday at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre in Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown.
This year’s competition offers a grand prize first-place prize of $1 million, $500,000 for second place, and a special prize of $500,000 for the best team with members under 25 years old.
The competition will run for three days, and the theme this year is focused on Guyana’s public transportation system.
Fourteen teams, each consisting of three members, are participating in this year’s Innovation Challenge. Aside from the cash prizes, three individuals will also be selected for internships at SBM Offshore, the main sponsor of the competition.
The Innovation Challenge provides a platform for young Guyanese to develop and enhance their coding skills. It offers participants resources and opportunities to showcase their abilities in information technology while learning from industry experts.
This year’s challenge focuses on improving the public transportation system in Guyana, Stevan Nguyen, a representative from SBM Offshore, said.
“As we are coming here to visit Guyana, we have noticed people on the side of the road flagging down the minibusses, and that kind of inspired us to say, how does one call this minibus? After talking with locals, from what I understand, you just flag them down; there is no real way to track when the next minibus comes, and there is no bus stop,” Nguyen explained.
This year, the participants are being asked to build “something that can help a normal daily person track and find your minibus or transportation service, so this could apply to both the coastal region and the hinterland region,” Nguyen added.
The participants will be judged on the implementation of timings, safety, how to track vehicle speed, weather conditions, and user accessibility, among other factors, in their applications.
“If Guyana determines that it wants to build a train service or government bus service, so this backend we are asking you to build is to facilitate not only the user side but also the admin side,” Nguyen said.
Meanwhile, the Director of the Industry and Innovation Unit, Shahrukh Hussain, during remarks highlighted that the event encourages the generation of new ideas to solve real-world problems and also facilitates collaboration and networking.
“Here you can let your imaginations soar, explore what has never been done before, and develop solutions that can truly make a difference,” Hussain said.
A participant from last year’s challenge, Timothy Shripersaud, shared his experiences.
“Ever since taking part in this tournament, many opportunities and doors have been opened to me. I have had the chance to work with brilliant people from across the world to solve complex problems with even more amazing solutions.
“I started a new career path as a data scientist, I have had the opportunity to travel, and most importantly, I have had the chance to grow as a person and in my career,” Shripersaud explained.
Shripersaud also said that programmers are important across all sectors and urged participants to make the most of the experience, be innovative, and think outside the box.
“When we talk about the oil and gas sector, you don’t hear much about programmers, but I can assure you that we are needed. We are needed to solve problems and create simple applications, like something to process documents, to make it more efficient.
“But not just in the oil and gas sector; we are needed across all sectors of Guyana. We, as developers and programmers, have a unique skill set that makes us a valuable asset to any organization and any sector we are part of.”
