The NI Innovation Design Competition for Young Entrepreneurs, a collaboration between NI and the HEEAP, was held for the first time in Vietnam. It offers engineering students and graduates from HEEAP academic partners a unique opportunity to design innovative solutions that support sustainable development in their communities. NI provided participants access to development platforms to help them design prototypes of their projects and further test their research. In addition to tools, NI provided the teams with training and consultation to help turn their innovative ideas into functional prototypes using the myRIO embedded hardware platform and LabVIEW software.
The final round of the competition took place on December 9, 2014 in Ho Chi Minh City. Five teams received the opportunity to present their projects in front of an audience of NI and HEEAP industry partners, along with a distinguished panel of judges who included Chandran Nair, Managing Director of NI Southeast Asia, Duy Loan Le, Senior Fellow of Texas Instruments and Board of Director of National Instruments and Richard Carruth, General Manager of ON Semiconductor Vietnam Assembly and Test Operations. The five finalists included teams from Can Tho University, Hanoi University of Science and Technology and Ho Chi Minh University of Technology. They focused on addressing community challenges in areas such as agriculture and healthcare.
A team from Hanoi University of Science & Technology won the grand prize for their project titled “Use of MyRIO to develop advanced control for agriculture produces drying system.” This project approached the global design of an advanced and cost effective microwave drying system to increase the value of agricultural products such as lychee, longan, and medicinal herbs. The team won a cash prize of $600 USD and a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT programmable robotics kit. In addition, the team will have the opportunity to travel to the NIWeek2015 global conference in Austin, Texas, and present their paper in the global competition. The second prize winner was the Can Tho University team. They received $300 USD and a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT programmable robotics kit, and will have their paper published on ni.com.
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