In just four months, two undergraduate developer teams participating in the IoT Challenge at the University of Washington Bothell designed and developed IoT-based platforms that solved campus-wide and international-reaching issues. “These teams stood out because they wanted to tackle core issues that affect people’s daily lives—and they’re doing so with the intelligence of cloud technology,” said Microsoft’s Colin Kwong, a coordinator and co-judge for the event.

The Campus Innovators team proposed using an IoT system to create a “smart campus” using Microsoft Azure services and Windows 10 IoT Core. “We wanted to empower students to solve on-campus problems, and to establish a platform or application program interface (API) that was simple and compelling enough to make any student—regardless of their technical background—wonder, ‘How will this work for me?’” said Skyler Kidd from the Campus Innovators team.

Kiran Gurajala, who grew up in a rural coal-mining town in India, knew what impact a lack of electricity could have on a community. For him, the IoT Challenge became a personal quest. His SmartGrid team proposed creating an IoT system that could help developing countries trim energy consumption by 10 percent using Azure IoT Hub. The competition is over, but both teams plan to continue their research and prototype development.

Product/Service

Headquartered in Bothell, Washington, the University of Washington Bothell is a four-year undergraduate and graduate campus in northeast King County, and is one of the three campuses of the public University of Washington.

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Education