In line with the university’s commitment to produce employable graduates, CPUT students are always presented with opportunities to interact with industry captains and familiarize themselves with their future work environments.
Third-year students in the Information Technology Department recently took part in the first ever international Unearthed Hackathon event which was held at the V&A Waterfront.
The event was organized by mining giants, Anglo platinum and De Beers, and pitted the region’s four universities and industry specialists against each other.
Among the contestants were theoretical physicists, statisticians, mathematicians, engineers and Information Technology Developers and were tasked to provide real-time solutions to industrial problems.
The contestants were presented with five problem scenarios that have to do with the mining industry, for which they had to provide solutions and also create a prototype.
The teams were allocated 54 hours in which to do the work.
The CPUT students, under the supervision of lecturer Kruben Naidoo, chose two problems to solve and split into two teams.
One team dealt with sound analysis while the other tackled truckload measurements.
While the CPUT team did not clinch the first prize, the students were exposed to the ins and outs of the mining industry and learnt valuable lessons in the process.
“Given the fact that this was the department’s first hackathon, we were able to gain experience with new technologies,” says Prima Inderlal, Work-Integrated Learning Co-ordinator in the department.
Written by Kwanele Butana
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