Transforming lives through tech is 10th SWEEP Awards theme

MANILA, Philippines -Students and faculty from engineering schools nationwide under the Smart Wireless Engineering and Education Program (SWEEP) will once again have the chance to showcase their innovations in the 10th SWEEP Innovation and Excellence Awards.

Organized by wireless leader Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), SWEEP Awards will have for its theme this year, “Transforming Lives through Technology”, highlighting the need for more trail-blazing applications and devices that harness the power of mobile technologies to make lives of Filipinos better.

“Smart is always on the lookout for ‘disruptive’ innovations developed by students from our partner engineering schools.  With this program, Smart hopes to promote the culture of innovation and excellence among the students,” said Ramon Isberto, Smart public affairs group head.

The biggest and only competition of its kind for engineering students in the country, Smart encourages the development of end-to-end mobile applications or solutions using Smart’s platform of products and suite of services to address problems, issues or needs of communities or industries.

Winners will get cash prizes of as much as P500,000, including their schools, which will also receive the equivalent amount in the form of a grant.

Apart from the substantial cash prizes, entries to this year’s SWEEP Awards will automatically be considered as entries to the IdeaSpace competition. All who wish to join the SWEEP Awards must accomplish IdeaSpace forms, which are also available on the SWEEP website, www.smartsweep.ph.

The IdeaSpace Foundation, the incubator arm of the First Pacific group of companies, will be holding the IdeaSpace Competition for the second year as part of its commitment to support technology entrepreneurship in the Philippines.

With IdeaSpace, teams behind the SWEEP entries will have a chance to transform their prototypes into viable technology start-ups.

Smart has been holding the SWEEP Awards since 2004 to encourage innovation among partner-schools under SWEEP, the first-of-its-kind industry-academe partnership that seeks to raise the level of technology and engineering education in the country. A staunch advocate for education, Smart has been supporting projects that make use of mobile technology solutions to expand learning opportunities and build capacities of students from grade school up to college level.