Cebu schools dominate Accenture innovation contest

(CDN Photo / Max Limpag)

A student project that seeks to teach speech to children with cleft palate was named the grand champion of Accenture Philippines’ Program The Future 2018 today during the finals in Taguig City.

The team from Cebu Institute of Technology University (CIT-U) won the top prize with their Tingog app, which seeks to help children with cleft palate and speech difficulties learn how to speak.

Tingog is meant to complement professional speech therapy, the students said in an earlier interview.

The CIT-U students won P300,000 while the school got P50,000.

A team from University of San Carlos (USC) won the Accenture Tech Vision Award for its project, Tactus.

The project taps the internet of things and artificial intelligence to allow blind people to read via a glove that transforms words into Braille feedback on the fingertips.

Sumulong College of Arts and Sciences completed the winners with a project aimed at preventing flash floods by using sensors.

Five teams from Cebu made it to the national finals. CIT-U had another finalist that proposed using tech to manage and monitor Cebu City’s free medicines program.

University of the Philippines Cebu (UP Cebu) made it to the nationals with its Cancervive, an app to support cancer victims in their treatment.

University of San Jose Recoletos (USJ-R), meanwhile, had a finalist team that proposed a portal to analyze and assess needs of communities hit by calamities.

Program The Future is an annual event started by Accenture five years ago as a way to link up with the academe.

“The intent really is through the months-long program, we want to help students rediscover their power to shape the future through technology,” Accenture Advanced Technology Centers in the Philippines Managing Director Arvin Yason said in an earlier interview.