Students from the Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS) won second and third place nationally in the “Datos a la U” contest, an initiative of the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications (MinTIC) through its Digital Government Directorate. This competition was aimed at university students in the country, with the purpose of encouraging the use of open data to develop innovative solutions to national problems.
With ‘Datos a la U’, university students aimed to generate innovative projects with a high positive impact on society, through advanced analysis of open data and the creation of innovative products, such as interactive visualizations, infographics, applications, predictive models, among others.
UIS participants demonstrated their knowledge and skills by competing in the final stage of the competition in Bogota. There, 16 finalist teams presented their projects before a panel of specialized judges, who chose the three winners. Of these, two teams were made up of students from the Universidad Industrial de Santander.
These are the winning UIS teams of the competition:
Second place in the competition: Team FIRENET
FIRENET is a platform designed to support forest fire management by integrating geospatial technologies and artificial intelligence, using open meteorological data on precipitation and temperature provided by IDEAM, along with data related to environmental crimes available on the MinTIC open data platform and provided by the Ministry of National Defense.
Its advanced technology makes it possible to identify areas susceptible to fires based on the information collected. Using convolutional and recurrent artificial neural networks, FIRENET is able to predict the monthly behavior of temperature and precipitation in future years. This capability allows prioritizing areas of the department that, during dry seasons, present a higher density of environmental crimes, thus contributing to the prevention of forest fires.
Its creators are Ana Gabriela Mantilla Dulcey, a master’s student in Geophysics; León Santiago Suárez Rodríguez, a master’s student in Systems and Computer Engineering; and Luis Miguel Rodríguez López, also a master’s student in Systems and Computer Engineering and a member of the Algorithm Design and Multidimensional Data Processing (HDSP) research group.
Third place: Team SentIA, artificial intelligence chatbot focused on suicide prevention.
SentIA is an innovative application that uses artificial intelligence to offer emotional support to people facing difficult times. Through a voice recognition system, it allows interacting with the user in real time, providing personalized recommendations and practical advice. In addition, it continuously tracks the user’s emotions, helping to monitor their well-being. Its purpose is to create a safe and reliable space where people can receive emotional guidance and promote their well-being over time.
“This project arose from the information available on the Open Data portal on suicide attempts, which allowed us to identify a critical opportunity for prevention in this area. With the use of generative artificial intelligence and machine learning models, we developed a solution capable of analyzing and responding empathetically to user interactions, creating a personalized accompaniment. Coming in third place in this competition has not only been a recognition of our idea, but also a reflection of the effort and passion we put into its development,” commented its creators.
The SentIA team is formed by Janer Alberto Vega Jácome, Nelson Fabián Pérez Pérez and Manuela Alejandra García Valbuena, students of the School of Systems and Computer Engineering of the UIS.
The ‘Datos a la U’ competition brought together 283 teams from different regions of the country, including Atlántico, Bogotá, Cauca, Santander, Risaralda and Valle del Cauca. With this competition, the MinTIC reaffirms its commitment to promote the use of open data in Colombia, empowering university students to create innovative solutions that benefit society.
UIS students received technological tools in recognition of their outstanding participation in this competition.
