‘Employ technology to address challenges’

The Associate Dean, Faculty of Technology of the BlueCrest University College, Dr Narendra Kumar, has urged the government, ministries, other state agencies and the entire corporate society to employ technology in addressing every problem they face.

He said technology was the surest way to resolve every challenge as it saved money, time and protected the environment.

"For instance, a software can be developed to identify all potholes on our streets. The authority in charge will only have to issue an order for it to be fixed instead of going all around the country," he said.

He was speaking in an interview on the sidelines of the maiden hackathon event organised for students of the school.

Hackathon

The event was aimed at offering students the opportunity to explore their potential, skills and abilities and the experience of grooming each other as they worked in groups.

A hackathon is a designed sprint-like event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including designers, interface designers, project managers, others often including subject-matter-experts, collaborate intensively on software projects.

The goal is to create usable software or hardware with the aim of creating a functioning product by the end of the event.

The participants were tasked to identify shortfalls in the school's existing web page and to come up with workable solutions to improve upon it, making it easy to use and easily accessible by all.

“We are planning to meet the ministries soon to propose some solutions to them. After identifying the problems, we will organise a bigger event where we will come up with ideas and how much will be needed to fund them, Dr Kumar said.

“Let us help protect nature by digitising Ghana. If the government can support us, we can do a very good work,” he added.

New courses

Meanwhile, the Head of Department (HoD) of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Mr Michael Kolugu, speaking to the Daily Graphic said the university would introduce Blockchain this month as one of the new programmes for the year as demand for virtual currencies was rising so quickly across the globe.

Blockchain is a digital ledger in which transactions made in bitcoin, Litecoin or another cryptocurrency are recorded chronologically and publicly.

The programme will teach students the technology behind Blockchain and how it operates.