Thursday, July 17, 2008, 00:00
Catch a ride with your mobile
Need a ride to leave your car at home and save on the soaring fuel prices or is it just that you are totally helpless when public
transport is on strike? A group of Maltese university students have come up with a good solution and showcased it at the
worldwide finals of the prestigious Microsoft Imagine Cup 2008.
University of Malta students Mark Cassar, Karl Cassar, Reuben Hayman and Mario Gauci were representing Malta in Paris
last week in what is described as the world's premier student technology competition.
"Unfortunately, Malta didn't make it to the second round," said Mark Cassar. "Competition was very fierce but, although we
did not manage to get through to the second round, it was an amazing experience. We still believe that we have a very good
project which is very relevant to the environment theme."
The Maltese team has designed and implemented an innovative GPRS-based car pooling system named Ants Car Pooling.
They examined the possibility of using a car's potential to the full and have built a system that promotes car pooling in a way
that benefits all participants. The system uses already-available mobile technology. Persons who need to travel simply send a
mobile phone message to a central server stating their location, destination and the time of travel. The system automatically
sends the information to cars using the same route. Drivers who give lifts to other persons get awarded 'carbon points' which
can be used to pay for fuel or utility bills. The result translates into less traffic congestion, less air pollution, more efficient
use of fossil fuel and a better environment.
Even before going to Paris, the Ant Car Pooling system earned significant praise.
"Although car pooling is not a new topic, their incentive and IT-based approach is," commented Karl Davies Barett,
Microsoft Developer Platform Evangelist for Malta and Cyprus. "Using cutting-edge technologies to combine PC, web and
mobile technologies, that are based on the Microsoft .NET platform, has enabled them to develop a truly streamlined system
that allows their users to access their data anytime and from any place, even in their cars. I feel the team has succeeded in
making a system that is so easy to use and understand ... The team has proved that today's technology can truly make a
difference to the world around us, all we need to do is to apply it."
The Imagine Cup started five years ago, and already more than 100,000 students from over 100 countries and regions have
competed. The competition encourages young people to apply their imagination, their passion and creativity to technology
innovations that focus on finding solutions to real-world issues. The contest spans a year, beginning with local, regional and
online contests, the winners of which go on to attend the global finals held in a different location every year. This year's
theme was the environment.
The University of Malta has participated in the Imagine Cup for these last four years. Last year the Maltese students who
went to Seoul, South Korea, won the Best Multi-point Application Award and were given an expenses-paid three-month
internship at Microsoft Research in India.