With the spirit of not being afraid to do something new and challenging, many students from member schools of the University of Da Nang (UD) have left a deep impression on the general public when coming up with scientific and technical creation ideas. Most products do catch up with the currently burgeoning trend of industrial revolution 4.0, with high applicability in the fields of healthcare, education and environmental protection.

A group of students from the University of Economics gives oral presentation on the project ‘Living history’ at the startup competition exclusively for students.

Mobility assistance vehicle for patients

“The hardest thing in the process of realising my idea is the will and determination to complete it.”, said Phan The Hien, the research team leader, from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, the Da Nang University of Education and Technology, a member school of UD, while taking about the process of manufacturing mobility aids for patients who are the disabled and the elderly under treatment in hospitals.

The idea was born when Hien witnessed a polio patient's relatives having to work very hard to perform personal hygiene for the patient. Since then, Hien has rekindled the idea of making an assistive product to help patients move by themselves more easily and conveniently.

In March 2020, Hien and his peers in the group embarked upon realising the idea of this community-targeted supportive product. However, it took the whole team more than 3 months to complete the project and convince the teachers about the product’s feasibility and application to life.

“Currently, there are still products available in the market to assist patients, so as soon as we started to implement the idea. It took us a long time to mull over how to make our product stand out from others, said Hien.

In nearly a year of making products in the face many repeated failures, but after each unsuccessful test, the group’s members encouraged one another to overcome disappointment to try harder. After great efforts, the team has successfully built a vehicle to support polio patients.

The highlight of this easy-to-use product is convenience, full functionality as the device can be raised and lowered to move in many terrains. It also helps save energy when using 24V battery. Especially, the price will be lower than other similar products.

Detect respiratory disease through cough

Meanwhile, with a product to monitor and detect respiratory diseases, a group of students led by Dang Thanh Son from the Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, the Da Nang University of Education and Technology as the team leader, has researched supportive tools for the early detection of COVID-19 for thousands of suspected people.

The idea comes from when Son joined the artificial intelligence (AI) project for public healthcare. Son and his friends embarked on a step-by-step implementation, including researching applications for the early detection of respiratory diseases through coughs.

In November 2020, the whole team started collecting and building a database of medical records, including the coughs of people with Covid-19.

“The most difficult step is to collect and build the database because it is both time consuming and labour intensive. Almost every day the team had to work at 200% of their capacity to differentiate normal coughs from pathological coughs and outside noises. That was also the time when the COVID-19 broke out, working in conditions of limited movement, so the group’s members strived to bring the project to fruition as soon as possible. When the database was built, the whole team was very happy”, said Son.

After having completed the database, the team focused on putting AI into recognising coughs and building an application on Android and Windows platforms to help track and divide coughs into 4 levels: normal cough, grade-1 pathological cough, grade-2 pathological cough and the cough of COVID-19- infected people.

The application is built as software that runs in the background, which can work offline on one device or work online synchronously across multiple devices with a single account. The app is available for free on Google Play Store and Windows Store.

Through the collection of cough sounds, if the application detects that the cough has abnormal signs belonging to the group of diseases, an alert will be sent to the phone to help the patient detect it early. When being put into trial, the application achieved 87% accuracy when detecting COVID-19 patients.

According to Son, the results of the trial are only the first step, because the group's intention is to build projects that apply AI techs in supporting the health of the community. In the coming time, the group will continue to launch more programmes on warning and rescuing services.

Vietnamese historical stories are provided through the G-Old Days app. Photo: X.HAU

‘Living history’

In another field, with a special love for the Vietnamese history, a group led by student Tran Khanh Linh from the Faculty of Finance, the University of Economics has implemented the project ‘Living history’.

Realising that many young people today no longer have much passion for learning history, Linh and her group of friends came up with an idea to apply virtual reality (VR) technology based on Vietnamese historical stories provided through the G- Old Days application in an attempt to make history come alive and more attractive.

“The hardest part is to ensure the content of the Vietnamese history through the reigns of kings must be accurate. We are lucky to receive the enthusiastic support of mentors who are history professors who specialise in researching on national costumes. We are still continuing to perfect our products. Currently, the project is reconstructing the life and illustrious feats of national heroes. Hopefully, the heroic history of the nation will come closer to young people”, said Linh.

The above-mentioned creative and startup ideas Hien, Son and Linh have developed show the desire that youth, along with advances in science and technology, will contribute to a better life for all.

Reporting by XUAN HAU - Translating by A.THU