The 100% Witwatersrand University-owned digital incubation hub, Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Pretoria, announced the call for entries for their Digital Twin Hackathon.
Entries are open to 15 students from South Africa and 15 students from the Netherlands.
The Digital Twin Hackathon holds the potential to benefit policy-making for the City of Johannesburg. 30 university students hold the power to combine their diverse experiences to solve problems that could change the narrative of municipalities in South Africa.
The goal is to transform their hypotheses into theories and, ultimately, action.
“Globally, the use of digital twins to modernise cities is becoming more well-adopted. Essentially, through the use of technology, real-world systems can be created and run in a sophisticated manner to gain insights more cost-effectively. Governments and city planners can use these systems to track, manage and solve problems before putting them in action,” explains Carol Jaji, Tshimologong Digital Skills Manager.
“Virtual representations of physical objects, such as buildings, equipment or even processes, can be rendered through the installation of live sensor data to create a digital twin with capabilities that extend to streaming the movements of people and traffic in real-time.”
The benefit of using digital twins has been seen in Rotterdam, the Netherlands since November 2021.
Following the success of the biennial #cocreateMYCITY in Johannesburg, the concept of digital twins was discussed with great enthusiasm, particularly within the context of its use as an economic development and policy tool.
The Digital Twin Hackathon is an extension of this and a unique opportunity to address challenges in South Africa. Through this collaboration with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, we aim to innovate with South Africans, for South Africans, while leaning on the learnings that have been put to use in the Netherlands. As the project develops, it holds great potential for scalability and positively impacting the digital and development challenges that South Africa is determined to overcome.
Enter the Digital Twin Hackathon
15 South African students stand the chance of participating in the Digital Twin Hackathon, which takes place over five days from 07 November 2022 to 11 November 2022 in Johannesburg.
To enter, please click the link https://forms.gle/jXJ7NZsWAiMqYrjy5, and complete the registration form. We’d like to know more about you and how you see yourself adding value to the Digital Twin Hackathon.