The device brought these first year students to win the first place of Datathon 2019, a competition organized by Government of Bandung and City of Melbourne. Despite being on their first year, these students can compete with other competitors who come for higher education background.

The competition started on March 2019 with proposal selection and concluded with final pitching on 17 May 2019 at Royale Hotel, Bandung where the team won the title. The team raised a theme “Road Safety for Pedestrian, Cyclist, Bikers, and Drivers” with their product, Avion (Audio to Vibration). “Our product is a driving assistance for deaf people. The basic concept is that it changes horn sound into vibration,” said Ronny.

“The idea comes from seeing a family suffering from hearing impairment and got ticketed because they cannot hear car horns,” explained Ronny. He said that the team wanted to tackle problems in Indonesia in general and Bandung in specific, especially to support Bandung as inclusive city.

The device is a smart watch which, as the name implies, receives horn sound and sends it as vibration to users. This is one of solutions for traffic safety for deaf people.

In the competition, the team and other competitors conducted intensive pitching and mentoring at The Greater Hub of SBM-ITB on 8 April 2019 until 16 May 2019 to prepare their products better. “During incubation phase at The Greater Hub, we received new insight about the process of building a start up and about business model canvas,” said Ronny. The competition has pushed the team to give their best on their product.

For their product, the team receive the grand prize, a one-week study in Melbourne, Australia. Ronny said that the team will work on polishing their product so that it is ready for use by deaf people. Further cooperation with Government of Bandung and Directorate of Traffic Security, National Police of Indonesia will be conducted for implementation of their product.

Reporter: Irfan Ibrahim (Geodesy and Geomatics 2016)