The Information Communication Technology Association of Malawi (ICTAM) has presented K1 million prize money to this year’s Innovations Forum overall winner Yusuf Chimole.
Chimole received his prize after Innovations Forum headline sponsor, Sparc Systems, fulfilled its pledge during a function held on Thursday at the company’s headquarters.
Chimole, 22, who is a third year Polytechnic student, said he is happy that his project was named the best in the year and he also thanked both the sponsor, Sparc, and ICTAM.
“I am thankful to both Sparc and ICTAM for the support. I am also encouraged with the prize,” said he.
Chimole developed Lync Energy Sys that enables people to monitor and plan their electrical power consumption using their mobile phones.
“You can also control your mobile your electrical appliances from your mobile phone when you are far away from your home or offices. Mainly the goal of the project is to monitor electricity usage and optimize the usage,” he said.
Chimole said after finishing fourth year studies he intends to develop the system further and implement it.
Sparc Systems Technical Sales Manager, Alena Chiwaya, said they want to motivate innovators to develop innovations that address different problems in the country including social and financial.
“As an IT company I think what gives us the motive and will to assist in such projects is that we would like to promote innovation across the country amongst the youths at school and those already in the industry. The world is changing and technology is part of our lives. So the more innovation we support the better contributions we make to the country,” said Chiwaya.
She also added that since they started supporting the awards the impact has been good.
“The impact has been good we have had people registering to attend and showcase innovations during the Innovations Forum. This is because if we give them an incentive they work so hard towards their goals,” said Chiwaya.
ICTAM President, Bram Fudzulani, said the significance of these awards is so huge.
“Currently we are trying to document all the winners so that the nation can appreciate what we are actually doing. Once these guys have been recognised and exposed they are well established and some of them have even formed their companies and employed other people through the same innovations,” said Fudzulani.
The ICTAM President added that through the exercise the country will appreciate local innovators.
“The most important thing is the aspect that we are trying to bring to the society is that there are actually better things happening to our country. We used to hear about innovations being done in other countries now we are saying Malawians are also developing good innovations and we just need to support them by giving them platform to showcase their work. We might as a country also come up with policies that supports particular innovations,” he said.
