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Lloyd Mafoo: IoT Social Innovation ko Kasi

Lloyd Mafoo: IoT Social Innovation ko Kasi

Hello everyone, my name is Lloyd Mafoo and I am a junior Systems Developer, a final year student in Computer Systems Engineering at Tshwane University of Technology, I develop Internet of Things (IoT) and Robotics solution for social good.

I came up with a solution to develop a monitoring system for my final year project at TUT the concept came about because of the township I live at which is Mamelodi. The solution I came up with is called Kasi Rader Environment Monitoring System.
Kasi Rader Environment Monitoring systems is developed to help citizens in townships as a source of information since air pollution is a challenge that threatens basic human health.

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The system will inform the public about the air quality and raise the awareness to members of the community by doing so people will know the type of environment they live in and what are the causes of illnesses that affect them such as: headaches, allergies and asthma, nausea and vomiting, dizziness, kidney damage and cancer.

Being a systems developer means you must identify problems and come up with ideas that will help solve those problems, for me the problem was seeing that the township I live at faces real problems on air pollution and it’s difficult to walk around during late hours, the atmosphere is occupied by smoke and makes it difficult to breath fresh air.

As a young developer, IoT to me means that life will be made more easier knowing that computers will be there to help us, as a developer having the concept of IoT is an advantage to achieve greater things that will bring change to the society. The problem is, people have limited time, attention and accuracy, which means we are not very good at capturing data about things in the real world.

Having machines and people connected we would be able to track and count everything and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing and predict the future.

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My imagination of the next Africa is being the leading continent around the tech industry, at the moment the biggest tech trend in Africa, and the one that is making the biggest impact on the everyday lives of people is the rise of smartphones and feature phones.

As systems developer I wish to see more systems developed here being on the market for everyone to make use of. More and more learners around African countries are eager to go to the field of ICT with the knowledge and skills gained we can be a greater continent that innovate/create solution that will bring change to our life.

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Experience teaching high scholars last year how to code was very exciting for me knowing that I was giving back to the community also empowering youth with creative skills to enhance their knowledge and help them come up with great solution that will bring change to the community using the power of technology. Highlight was working with high scholars on the SkateHack projects, putting tech on a skateboard.

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10 tools/platforms one can use to get started

IBM Watson IoT - using predictive analysis on IoT data. IBM Watson has a set of APIs that help make this simple for developers. You can recongize objects in images, understand conversation sentiment

ThingSpeak - an IoT open source platform with MATLAB analytics mostly used for data visualizationThingSpeak - an IoT open source platform with MATLAB analytics mostly used for data visualization

[Node-Red](https://ubidots.com/ - a programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways.

Ubidots - accelerates Internet of Things innovation for makers, developers and the enterprise.

Twilio Progammable Wireless - brand new service for adding cellular connectivity to IoT projects, includes the ability to monitor devices on the fly and control them from anywhere

Microsoft Azure IoT suite - For processing the massive amount of information generated by sensors Azure IoT suite comes with Azure Stream Analytics to process massive amounts of information in real-time

IFTTT – makes use of different services like Phillips Hue, Nest, and Wemo, makes it easy to connect and control those devices

[Google Cloud Platform](https://cloud.google.com/iot/docs/concepts/overview - With the ability to handle the vast amount of data using Cloud IoT Core, Google stands out from the rest. You get advanced analytics owing to Google’s Big Query and Cloud Data Studio

ThingWorx IoT Platform - IoT platform which is designed for enterprise application development. It offers features like Integrated machine learning for automating complex big data analytics

Carriots - build and host internet of things applications, ease of integration with other applications. It also widely used for Machine to Machine development.

In conclusion, IoT is a great way to bring social Innovation. Information is power and what matters is what you do with that information. Developing solution that monitor the environment we live in as a good example. Getting the information in your hand you will be able to know what protective measures to take.