The engineering projects in community service competition organised by USAID wrapped up in HCM City yesterday with teams from three universities winning top awards.

Some 150 students from six engineering and technology universities took part.

Teams from Da Nang University of Science and Technology, HCM City University of Technology, Industrial University of HCM City won top awards for their innovations of rehabilitation gloves, Assamica tea and diagnostic software for breast cancer.

The contest, part of the USAID BUILD-IT and Dow Vietnam STEM programme, is based on the Engineering Projects in Community Service curriculum model to support student-led innovation and service-learning at Vietnamese universities.

EPICS is an internationally recognised model of service learning where students not only learn by doing but also learn by creating prototypes to address social challenges.

Dow Vietnam provided funding for the students’ projects, faculty support and industry-based mentoring to help address some pressing challenges in Viet Nam including the COVID-19 outbreaks.

The unique challenges that the students and their communities have been facing during the pandemic inspired students to develop engineering solutions for real problems such as building an information managing system to help local governments effectively manage information about vaccination and offering a robotic solution for goods delivery. — VNS