cs.up.ac.za Standard Bank Technology Impact Challenge 2025 : University of Pretoria

cs.up.ac.za Standard Bank Technology Impact Challenge 2025 : University of Pretoria

Organization : Department of Computer Science at the University of Pretoria

Competition Name : Standard Bank Technology Impact Challenge 2025

Applicable For : South African citizen

Com Date : 6 May 2025

Prize : R125 000

 

Website : http://www.cs.up.ac.za/

Standard Bank Technology Impact Challenge 2025 :

Competition Rules :

The following rules apply :

1. Competition eligibility :

1.1. If you enter as an individual, you have to:

** currently attend a university in South Africa.

Related : Centre for Human Rights African Student Cellphone Film Competition : www.sanotify.com/7200.html

** be a South African citizen or a permanent resident.

** be a full-time undergraduate in any discipline, or

** be full-time or part-time honours student in any discipline.

1.2. Team entries – up to four people may enter as a team – all of them may attend the heats or the finals. Teams will be formed to represent their university.

1.3. A team may not have more than two members from a team that came first, second or third in the 2016 finals.

1.4. A team may not have more than two members from a team that came first, second or third in the 2016 finals.

1.5. Teams that make it to the finals: a maximum of two team members may be replaced by substitutes following the heats, as long as the conditions set out in 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 are met.

1.6. Teams from Standard Bank may also participate, but are not eligible for any of the prizes.

1.7. Lecturers or University representatives accompanying the university teams to the finals may not partake or give advice to the student teams during the competition. However, are invited to form a team and participate in the competition, in both or either phase, at the finals and are eligible to win prizes.

2. Detail of the Competition :

2.1. The heats will take place on Saturday, 6 May 2025 at the team’s home university or a nearby facility. The heats will last four hours, starting at 10.00am.

2.2. The competition Finals will take place from Saturday 19th until Monday 21st August 2025 in Gauteng.

2.3. The format of the competition will follow three phases :

a) Heats – top performing teams will be invited to attend the finals

b) Finals :

** HashBlock – answering of technical problems with binary answers.

** IdeaChain – developing a prototype using Blockchain to solve a problem defined at the Finals

3. Detail of the Heats :

3.1. Any one or any combination of the following programming languages may be used :

** Java

** C++11 (compiled with GCC)

** Python 2

** Python 3

3.2. The versions used for judging will be communicated to universities before the completion starts, but will at least include Oracle Java SE 8, GCC 5.4, Python 2.7 and Python 3.5.

3.3. As far as practicable, competition problems are related to blockchain, but no knowledge about blockchain is needed to solve them. The problems may vary in difficulty.

3.4. There may be problems to which access will only be given once another problem has been solved.

3.5. Solutions are required to follow a specified interface, or to produce output in a particular format. These solutions will then be tested in a judged run against hidden test data compiled by the judges. By default, a judged run is deemed successful by the judges if it processes the hidden test data correctly within the time and memory constraints that will be specified in the competition material.

Competitors may not :

** load any material on their contest computers in advance

** have access to the internet during the competition

bring the following into the contest area, nor may they remove it from the contest area if it was issued there:

** computers and programmable calculators personal digital assistants, personal music devices, mobile phones, tablets and machine-readable media such as memory sticks and CDs computer peripherals

4. Detail of the Finals :

4.1. The Finals will take place at the Standard Bank Global Leadership Centre

4.2. The Finals will take place in two phases:

a) HashBlock :

** Each team from their university will partake in this phase in their original university team.

** Up to 5 question may be asked

** Each question will be released to the teams on the hour, each team will have one hour to answer each question.

** From when the answers are submitted, the results of the answers will be released within the next hour, once judged.

** The last two questions’ scores will not be released

** The final scores will be announced at the prize-giving.

b) IdeaChain :

** An unconference will be held

** Teams of up to 6 people will be formed

** Teams will be required to build an application prototype using blockchain

** Teams will be required to pitch the app to a panel of judges.

Prizes :

5.1. The following prizes will be awarded :

a) HashBlock :

** First prize – R125 000 to the university the team represents, and prizes to the members of the team.

** Second Prize – R65 000 to the university the team represents, and prizes to the members of the team.

** Third Prize – prizes to the members of the team

b) IdeaChain :

** First Prize – R8 000 to each team member

** Second Prize – R4 000 to each team member

** Third Prize – R1 000 to each team member.