Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd announced EDDY, a mobile app gamifying learning of sign-language for those with speech and hearing impairment, as the grand prize winner of its seventh edition of Digi Challenge for Change (DigiCFC7) programme. The team, walked away with RM70,000 in cash to further develop their solution.
The other two teams, Good People Today and Food Ninja Innovation, each won RM30,000 in cash.
All three teams will also have the opportunity to earn an additional seed grant of up to RM50,000 each from Agensi Innovasi Malaysia, on top of the cash prize over the next six months.
Food Ninja Innovation is an app that can help to reduce food waste by outsourcing unconsumed food to relevant beneficial parties and businesses while Good People Today is crowd-funding app to cater to medical needs of those whose families is not able to afford the high cost of medical procedures and recovery expenses.
Under the theme “Digital Connectivity for Good”, the teams have gone through a journey from the ideation phase, to the development of the mobile applications followed by the Proof of Concept (PoC) stage, testing out the viability and scalability of their respective solutions.
According to Praveen Rajan, Digi’s Chief Digital Officer, “The key distinctive aspect in this season’s DigiCFC Challenge is the introduction of the Proof of Concept phase. Validating a solution is a vital step as it gives an opportunity for the teams to test out their proposed ideas and solutions with their beneficiaries for feedback and improvements. This PoC stage allowed teams to review and pivot for better effectiveness and higher probability in creating positive societal impact,” added Praveen.
Launched in June 2016, DigiCFC7 received more than 250 ideas from the public, out of which three (3) winning ideas became the basis of 38 mobile solutions registered in the app development phase. Over RM70,000 in prizes will be awarded to the winning developer team this evening.
Among the panel of judges for the Finale are Datuk Mark Rozario, CEO of Agensi Inovasi Malaysia, Amir Amha, Programme Coordinator of Google Education Malaysia, Raj Ridvan Singh, CEO of SOLS 24/7, Amjad Rabi, Deputy Representative and Senior Social Policy Specialist of Unicef Malaysia, and led by Praveen Rajan, Digi’s Chief Digital Officer as the Chief Judge.
