When introducing a familiar idea of ‘AuP – automatic parking search engine’, student Nguyen Phuong Linh of the University of Finance – Marketing did not expect much except the wish to pursue her own interest to help the city where she was learning and living. Her idea did not much impress the organizing board. What is more, there are many similar solutions on the market like Pakme, iParking, Park.vn.
Therefore, when AuP was chosen as the winner of the whole contest, many people were left speechless. However, to Phuong Linh, the result was her deserved achievement after a lot of effort.
Phuong Linh shared that “AuP has addressed the weaknesses of existing software on the market, which are unreasonable parking fee in many parking lots or irrational user ecosystems. Thanks to the advice of many experts, I have remake the development plan of AuP by integrating the process of charging parking fee into user accounts and increase the revenue for parking lots through booking fee. In addition, there is also a fee reimbursement policy for booking if users cancel within the regulated time. This is used to stimulus users.”
According to Phuong Linh, because of the high speed of urbanization, there will be great demands for such a service in the near future. If properly invested, AuP will possibly become an ecosystem related to other essential value added or maintenance services to car owners like car washing, garage, and car parts repair.
Another hot issue to be chosen for the contest is urban flooded roads. The project ‘Aimingly pervious pavements – the aimingly pervious structure to reduce rain flooding and prevent land sinking in urban areas’ of Nguyen Bao Quan and Nguyen Van Nhuan, both of whom are learners of Orient Vocational School also achieved a very high position.
The two innovators hoped that the wide use of their project would basically erase the flooding state of HCMC after rain. This solution also helps to direct infiltrating rain water away from the foundation of buildings, which may protect them from erosion.
The project ‘Collecting traffic fee in urban areas to prevent congestion’ of Duong Nguyen Kim Ngan was also highly appreciated since she was able to introduce a method to measure the traveling length of vehicles in order to collect fee. This will ensure the fairness and logic when being applied.
The project ‘The signal lighting system to warn about traffic jams in advance’ of Vo Hoang Trang or the project ‘Bicycle-only lanes’ of Nguyen Thi Cam Tien also received praises from the judging board.
Although the above ideas and solutions are only at the beginning stage, they have shown that the young in HCMC are very concerned about social problems of the city and know how to apply technologies into solving them in order to develop their own city.
Representatives from Trung Nam Group, one of the organization members of the contest, said that the feasible projects and ideas will have a great chance to receive investment from companies to turn into reality. This means that the young owners of those projects are able to start their business by their own innovative solutions.
