Student projects

#cocreateMYCITY Durban Challenge 2017
Team Agriculture #testimonial

Our team worked on sustainable and smart solutions which would ensure food security in the city of Durban. Lower-income households cannot access or afford nutritious food in South Africa, which leads to malnutrition. This is linked to absenteeism in school and underperformance at work.

We established a close partnership with Umgibe; an award-winning local social enterprise, who have developed a highly scalable and low-cost urban farming system. We integrate a vertical hydroponic farming system to the existing structure, which is piloted by one of our South African agriculture engineering students. The output of fresh products will increase up to 4 times and the overall water and nutrient input will be reduced. Our plan is to install ten urban farming systems in high schools in the Chesterville township. Designed entrepreneurial programs allow graduates to kick-start their (vertical) urban farming business. That way, we build a network of urban food producers in the city of Durban and provide them with access to local markets!

Our project is called Urbuntu and we are searching for financial and educational help to create a food revolution in Durban. We are looking forward to take this project further through exciting collaborations. Please contact us! lexy@urbuntu.com 

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Students from Team Agriculture
Durban University of Technology: Zikhona Mtintso & Nompumelelo Gumede
University of KwaZulu-Natall: Rosanne Sutcliffe & Zikhona Buyeye
Erasmus University Rotterdam: Sebastiaan van Kooten & Elias Kock
TU Delft: Lexy Ratering Arntz & Lieke van der Wijk

#cocreateMYCITY Durban is an initiative from the Embassy of the Netherlands to cocreate sustainable, smart solutions to urban challenges in the city of Durban. From 13 to 23 November students from TU Delft and Erasmus University Rotterdam teamed up with students from Durban University of Technology and University of KwaZulu-Natal to tackle these urban challenges!

#cocreateMYCITY Durban Challenge 2017
Team Water #testimonial

CocreateMYCITY was an interesting and exciting opportunity for us as students. With the lovely weather of Durban and warmth of friendliness, it turned out to be a perfect place to work and learn! Our work challenge was related to the rain water harvesting methods and its storage problems.

As per our survey in the area of KwaNdengezi, a suburb of Durban, we found water was not a problem, but a crisis. Officially the area gets water twice a day from the tankers of the municipality, but at times these tanker don’t even come once in 3-4 days. Hence, we found a need of a decentralized solution.
We worked out a solution by which the inhabitants can store both the drinking water from the municipality and also collect rain water at the same time on their own.

This would make the inhabitants self-sufficient and will cut their dependency on the municipality water. In turn municipality would also save a lot in terms of transport costs, maintenance etc.
Hence we proposed to make water co-operatives that would bear the expenses and smooth working of the system. These co-operatives would be partly funded by municipality and partly by the individuals in exchange of money/labour/work hours etc. The idea of the whole concept was so intuitive that we decided to carry this forward with the help of our friends in SA. We trying to connect to investors and municipality to make this into a reality.

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Students from Team Water
Durban University of Technology: Ayanda Sithebe & Ntobeko Mlotshwa
University of KwaZulu-Natall: Nadia Croeser & Tauheeda Ahmed
Erasmus University Rotterdam: Jannes Klaas & Britt Laeven
TU Delft: Floor Crispijn & Shivam Srivastava

#cocreateMYCITY Durban Challenge 2017
Team Transport #testimonial

Because of the apartheid, a lot of poor Durbanites (people from Durban, SA) live in the outskirts of the city, resulting in long travel times. They are reliable on the public transportation system in order to go to work and earn some money.

Over the years a lot of companies moved to the newer and safer business districts, but the public transportation system did not get an upgrade. Result: the urban poor has to travel with huge detours (via the old business district) to their jobs, resulting in long travel times and high travel costs. Besides, most of the public transportation modes do not use fixed routes or schedules. The city council is building a new public transportation system, but this will take a long time before it is completed.

Therefore, we came up with an information platform on which minivan taxis are able to share their location. By mobile application, SMS service, website and screens on secure locations commuters can access this information. The system is relatively cheap to set up and will create a lot of jobs, so it fits in as a SMART city solution. Right now, our South African team members are talking with a couple of people that got excited about our idea. They are planning to start a tryout version of our system!

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Students from Team Transport
Durban University of Technology: Siyabonga Khazi & Lonna Mabandla
University of KwaZulu-Natall: Louis Mothwa & Naomi Kingu
Erasmus University Rotterdam: Susan Vermeulen & Suzanne Lucassen
TU Delft: Matthijs Baurichter & Irene Zubin

#cocreateMYCITY Durban is an initiative from the Embassy of the Netherlands to cocreate sustainable, smart solutions to urban challenges in the city of Durban. From 13 to 23 November students from TU Delft and Erasmus University Rotterdam teamed up with students from Durban University of Technology and University of KwaZulu-Natal to tackle these urban challenges!

#cocreateMYCITY Durban Challenge 2017
Team Health #testimonial

South Africa’s tuberculosis rate is among the highest in the world and is a leading cause of death. For more than half of South Africans, public hospitals are their primary source of healthcare. Waiting areas in these public hospitals are often overcrowded, poorly ventilated, and wait times are long, leaving patients vulnerable to contracting airborne infections like tuberculosis.

This challenge was tackled during the cocreateMYCITY challenge by using UV air purification. This is a leading technology in eliminating airborne pathogens, but you won’t often find it in a public hospital. That’s because it’s too expensive, and hospitals don’t have enough staff to maintain these machines. To make them accessible to public hospitals, Team Health has come up with a solution in the form of a sustainable business model: ClAirCon (Clean Air Consulting). The service begins with examining the waiting area of interest and filling in inputs to a needs assessment algorithm. The algorithm will use fluid dynamics analysis to strategically place seating, fans, and UV purifiers. This solution improves air circulation and directs the airflow away from vulnerable and infected patients and towards the UV purifier, reducing the number of purifiers required to achieve a high standard of air quality.

Team Health is now talking to several local entrepreneurs and is seeking funding for a pilot study in Durban. If you are interested and would like more information or to get involved, you can contact clairconsa@gmail.com.

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Students from Team Health
Durban University of Technology : Simphiwe Mkhwanazi & Gugulethu Mafuleka
University of KwaZulu-Natal : Sameera Kissoon & Atish Deoraj
Erasmus University Rotterdam :Saskia Hartog & Arthur Roos
TU Delft : Titia Kuipers & Kate Loe

#cocreateMYCITY Durban is an initiative from the Embassy of the Netherlands to cocreate sustainable, smart solutions to urban challenges in the city of Durban. From 13 to 23 November students from TU Delft and Erasmus University Rotterdam teamed up with students from Durban University of Technology and University of KwaZulu-Natal to tackle these urban challenges!