A fourth year Bachelor of Science in Information Technology student Sam Maskini has developed a supervised machine model, which has been trained to identify bank notes.

“At the moment, the machine is fed with codes and data which makes it able to identify money in different conditions like lighting, or whether it has been mixed with other papers,”Maskini explained.

Maskini also explained that this coding system has different potentials if scaled up to identify fake from real bank notes, sort out money using a robot and extract notes from each other.

Brenald Dzonzi, a fourth year Electrical Electronics Engineering student showcased his project of an object detection demo. It is able to detect common objects that are defined in the Microsoft’s Common Objects in Context Database (MSCOCO).

“This system can be applied in autonomous vehicle and robotics. It allows the device or computer be able to contextually react to the environment, such as slow down when there is a stop sign or prepare to move upstairs,” he said.

Thanda Mtegha came up with a system, which is used to determine a dominant colour in an image or picture.

“It can be used by people who label items on the website by just identifying the item by the exact colour one is searching for. Those people who label items on the website can use the machine to do it for them instead of doing it manually.” Mtegha explained.

Yusuf Chimole showcased his robot, which he controls it to move from one place to another.

Speaking on the projects, one of the presenters T Arthur Chibwana observed that there is need for communication and collaboration between the academic institutions and the industry. This will help to assist such projects so that they can be developed into useful projects.

“Different practitioners, private sectors and the University need to concentrate on such things so that innovations gets support either financial or expertise so that they can be scaled up effectively.” Chibwana said.