The Vodafone Merit Award was delivered on 29th June, to the best project developed under the scope of Wireless Mobile Networks and IoT curricular unit (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering – DEEC), during the 2021/2022 academic year. The ceremony and final pitches took place at Técnico – Alameda campus. Six projects were selected for the finals. The “Smart Vase” project, developed by the Técnico students João Rocheteau, was the winner.

The six teams pitched their projects and the jury took into account the potential of project execution, the innovative nature, the results achieved and the ability to effectively communicate the project idea.

Ambient Monitor, a device that measures gases and particles in the air, activates a cooling system and sends the data to a real-time application; Smart Garbage, which ensures that garbage containers can be open by voice command; Water Monitoring, a project that maintains water quality in aquariums or tanks; Bee Easy, which aims to revitalize honey production by monitoring hives; Greenhouse, a project that makes apartments more eco-friendly, and promotes fruit and vegetable culture in smart boxes that control temperature and the cooling system; Smart Vase, the winning project of this edition, which proposes a smart vase that maintains water supply periodically, when it is not possible to watering plants.

The ceremony was attended by the President of Técnico, professor Rogério Colaço, who stressed “these awards are very important because they stimulate students and help them focus in their works”; the Vice-president of Técnico for Operations & Corporate Partnerships, professor Pedro Amaral, who expressed his pride in seeing the results of the projects; and Pedro Santos, Head of Network Deployment at Vodafone, who highlighted the importance of the academia-business links.

The Vodafone Merit Award consists of a monetary prize of €1310. A donation of €873 was awarded to DEEC to improve teaching quality.