University students who developed a mobile app to ease traffic congestion head for China

Winners of  Huawei ‘Seeds for the Future’ innovation competition 

Dubai, UAE, March 20, 2017:  Three students of Canadian University Dubai (CUD) have won the opportunity to travel to Huawei Headquarters in China, following their recent triumph in the ‘Seeds for the Future’ student innovation competition.

Undergraduate marketing majors Rhoda Makki, Sofia Alami Riad and Ahmed Alaa were awarded first place among the six teams in the finals of the intra-university competition for their parking management system, EasyP, a mobile app that aims to ease traffic congestion and air pollution by effectively controlling private parking facilities across the city.

The EasyP team was selected from ten original submissions and six short-listed projects to take the trip to China. Runners up in the CUD leg of the competition were Mehak Ashfar, Esraa Mostafa and Saeed Aljabri for their air quality monitoring app, IBreathe, while Anthony Ezeh, Marina Mikhail and Maryam Dakhan took third place for their anti-congestion innovation, Wherego. 

The three top teams, along with the winning innovators from four other participating universities, also had the opportunity to exhibit their technologies at the First Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis for Future Generations, held in recently in Abu Dhabi. The students were widely commended for their innovations at the inaugural event, which showcased the entrepreneurs and innovators of the future.

Speaking about the competition-winning app, Rhoda explained, “We were inspired by what seems to be a growing problem of access to parking space across Dubai. We recognized not only the frustration, but also the social and environmental implications of people driving around the city in search of parking, and we wanted to develop a solution to help. The app works with the owners of private parking facilities to establish an effective booking and space management system, as well as providing added value services to help save time for motorists.”  

The Seeds for the Future competition was launched in November 2016 with the aim of encouraging university students to think innovatively and to develop projects that will help to improve community wellbeing. It was initiated by the UAE Ministry of Education and the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, and supported by Huawei.

Assistant Professor, Dr. Ons Bouachir, who coordinated the University’s participation in the challenge, said, “This competition has provided an excellent opportunity for students to apply their academic knowledge in a practical way and to learn new skills in communication, presentation and business development. They have been collaborating across disciplines to come up with business ideas that are both feasible and sustainable and developing their entrepreneurial potential in the process.”