Media Room

Imagine an app that can help you check the freshness of fish when you are at a wet market. That’s one of the winning proposals by our students to revitalise heartland shops.

NYP students’ innovative and enterprising spirit shone bright at the recent Heartland Innovation Challenge 2022.

Two NYP teams, comprising five students from SIT and one from SDM, presented innovative proposals to help heartland enterprises grow and innovate. They took first and third place under the Heartland Enterprise category and the Merchant Association category respectively.

Plans to implement their proposals are in the works.

For the Heartland Enterprise category, our students – SIT students Alex Chien, Kuick Si Qi and Yuki Lam – presented a winning proposal that will help fishmongers and their customers identify the freshness of fish. This is achieved through a mobile app that leverages AI technology for evaluation, thereby giving users confidence of the quality of fish sold.

The other team – SIT students Tey Jia Ying and V Varsha, as well as Jeang Zhe Wei from SDM – impressed in the Merchant Association category with their solutions to improve the footfall at a wet market. This involves a new payment process using a check-in card to consolidate purchases, and a locker system for collection of purchased items to improve the convenience of shopping at wet markets.

Says Alex: “Over three months, our team worked closely with our partner shop to understand their business operations. We saw clearly how digitalisation could help them stay relevant and build a wider customer base. We’re glad that they were receptive of our ideas, and hopefully this experience will open them up to embracing technology in their businesses.”

The Heartland Innovation Challenge is a platform that brings together heartland merchants and tertiary students to collaborate and co-create new and innovative products and services to keep the heartland enterprises competitive.