Students from the North-West University’s (NWU’s) School of Computer Science and Information Systems secured second position in the annual Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa (DIRISA) Student Datathon 2022 Challenge.

Themed "Using social media data to develop innovative solutions", the challenge aimed to demonstrate how open data can be utilised to develop creative and innovative solutions to some of South Africa's problems.

Lecturer Susan Campher says that teams from nine universities and one secondary school participated in the challenge.

The NWU team comprised Justin Sadie, a BSc computer science and physics student, and BSC in information technology students Merwe van der Vyfer, Charmain Lebelo and Gary Groenewald.

They scored second place with their solution to combat gender-based violence.

From left to right are Noluvuyo Gqadu from CodeNgwana, NWU students Justin Sadie, Merwe van der Vyfer, Charmain Lebelo and Gary Groenewald, and Dr Nobubele Shozi from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.