WESLEYAN University Philippines (WUP), the winner in the recently concluded Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program (Sweep) competition received a “joke” in the awards night when the school was erroneously named as the winner in one of the categories. The team members were initially embarrassed by the faux pas. Nevertheless, they said it was a vindication when they were named grand champion of the 11th Sweep Awards.
The WUP team is composed of Dunell Chozen Reyes (team leader); Ian Ceasar Bautista (presentor); Alvin Escobar (presentor); Cyrom Louis Renzo Agustin (researcher); Michelle Esthefanie Galindon (researcher); Shien Chin Salazar (researcher); Jerwin Cruz (researcher); Jan Dominic Dominado (graphics/interface); Paolo Paulino (graphics/interface); Jan Cyrus de Leon; Engr Leo Ramos (mentor) and Galilee Villar (mentor). In an email interview with the BusinessMirror, Villar shared their thoughts about S-Mart and Sweep.
What made you decide to develop S-Mart?
We first thought of possible community problems needed to be addressed. An agricultural province like Nueva Ecija has a problem in balancing the distribution of agricultural goods, resulting in overpricing and low income. With the use of this application, the income of producers will be maximized and will produce healthy competition.
What memorable experience led to the development of S-Mart?
Some of our members came from families of farmers. They’ve experienced loss of income because they can only sell their products to a limited market. These experiences and recent issues, like garlic hoarding and rice hoarding, which led to prices going up because of shortages, have motivated us to develop S-Mart.
What was your reaction when you learned that you won the contest?
We were overjoyed when we heard the announcement. We felt happy and fulfilled knowing that our labor was not in vain. Now, we have a renewed enthusiasm to pursue the development of our application.
Did you expect something big to happen with S-Mart during the Sweep Awards?
Even though we were very nervous, we were very positive and confident with the possible results, given the fact that the application plans and concepts had good reviews and comments.
How did you prepare for the competition? Did the competition push you to the limit?
We researched about how similar apps worked and how we can make our application unique, better, local and relevant. We surveyed farmers and market vendors on how they sell their products to know how S-Mart can help them. The competition not only pushed our group to the limit but it also drove us to do our best to make the application a reality.
Please explain how S-Mart operates.
S-Mart allows registered users to post advertisements of their agricultural products in the app, allowing other users to view, comment and even bid to buy the posted product. While posting their products, a picture of the product must be taken directly from the user’s camera, uploaded pictures from the gallery are not allowed. This helps us avoid fraudulent or deceptive pictures of the products being sold. S-mart can also forecast future prices of certain agricultural products on a weekly basis, using predictive algorithms that use previous data received from the Department of Agriculture, who monitors the prices of agricultural products.
Last, S-mart also computes the fuel consumption of vehicles for transporting products. Powered by Google Maps, it determines the distance from the current location of the farmer to the market where he wants to sell his products. This allows farmers to determine the best market to sell their products profitably, because they can now compare the cost of transporting their products to specific markets.
What are the benefits of S-Mart?
S-Mart assists small and medium-sized enterprises by helping them figure out the best prices for products, gives them idea about the distance and fuel cost and, most important, by helping them promote their products to a much wider marketplace.
What are your plans for S- Mart?
We are definitely thinking big for this app. For now, we’re polishing everything up before the release of its full version. We want to make sure everything is all good and working fine. We want to make this application available to the public as soon as possible.
Are there plans to develop such related apps in the future as a group or individual capacity?
For now, our group wants to focus on the development of the S- Mart application.
What will you do with your winning prize?
It will be distributed to the 10 members and two mentors of our group.
The other half will be used for the development of the application.
Image credits: Smart Communications Inc./Businessmirror