‘Game On’ with Samsung and the University of Pretoria
Samsung Electronics South Africa, harnessing their legacy of innovation to transform communities and lives for the better, and to open new opportunities for people, partnered with the University of Pretoria to provide two of their final 2012 year student projects, in the Computer Science field, with Samsung technologies to use in the development of their projects.
The students exhibited their projects at the annual project day at the university after which they were assessed with the results contributing to their overall final year mark.
“We live in a mobile age and Samsung is excited to work with the University of Pretoria to stimulate development on this important platform within the academic environment. South African youth have many fresh and innovative ideas and this partnership allows them to put those thoughts into workable solutions,” says Craige Fleischer, Director of Mobile Communications at Samsung.
This resulted in two teams, Red Pheasant and Void, working on developing applications for Samsung Smart TVs and smartphones.
Red Pheasant consists of Alex Buys, Alexander Pittendrigh, and Gideon van der Merwe. Void consists of Marco Rudolf Botha, Andre De Kock, Willem Bijker, Justin Oosthuizen, and Obathalele Kganane
Red Pheasant worked on conceptualising and designing a suite of applications that interact with each other and utilise at least two geo-sensors. The application will focus on providing the ability to record the movement of users using a GPS and storing that information to allow the user to analyse and share it at a later stage. The suite is integrated with Facebook but also has an in-house friend system for users to share information regarding their track date.
Void has developed a system that creatively utilises DLNA technologies to play a poker game utilising a Samsung Smart TV and mobile devices. It can also allow for both local and online multi-player modes. When a mobile device is linked to the Smart TV, users would be able to use the mobile device as the controller – for each player to receive and view their hand of cards, for the game which is shared on the TV screen.
“As part of our commitment to the development of young talent we were very excited to see what the students could do with our technologies. These two group showed great initiative and creativity in delivering applications that utilise our technology across multiple devices,” says Fleischer.
Students can use their applicaitions as a case study for potential job opportunities going forward, demonstrating their skills and abilities.
“This is another way in which Samsung provides people with a platform to empower themselves and live the digital life,” continues Fleischer.
To congratulate these students for their hard work and the display of high level technological skills, Samsung has rewarded them each with a Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone, the latest in smartphone technology.
Dr. Fritz Solms of the University of Pretoria expressed his appreciation of Samsung's valuable contribution to the final year projects. "Samsung provided students valuable industry insights, exposure to software development within modern enterprises and the challenge of developing for modern devices."
The success of this association with the University of Pretoria has led Samsung to consider approaching other leading tertiary institutions for similar agreements during the course of 2013.