As twelve teams gathered at the Grand Pacific Hotel on Saturday to compete against each other with innovative ideas, one team was chosen to walk away with the main prize.

The team, Chai-yo, was one of the five teams from the University of the South Pacific who participated in the ANZ Pacific Innovation Challenge.

Each team was assigned a mentor, organised by the team of organisers in ANZ.

The mentors were from ANZ NZ, UNICEF, ANZ Pacific, Paradise Beverages, Telecom Fiji Limited, STANDSS, Vodafone, ANZ Australia and ANZ India.

Students were from the University of the South Pacific, University of Fiji and Fiji National University.

During the challenge, each team was required to present their innovative ideas to a team of judges.

The judges were from ANZ Pacific, PFIP, Flour Mills of Fiji, UNICEF, ANZ Pacific Operations and ANZ New Zealand.

Ram Singh from team Chai-Yo said the team did not expect to win the main prize.

According to Mr Singh, his group’s idea was to create a mobile application called ‘FREN’, that would allow people in the rural areas to showcase their services to the tourists.

The mobile application will then provide tourists the direction to whichever place they would like to go, said Mr Singh.

Mr Singh explained that ‘FREN’ means the app should have Freedom, Resilience, Energetic and gives a Novel experience.

Team Chai-yo won a $200 shopping voucher each from Prouds and trophies.

Meanwhile, one of the five teams from the Fiji National University, team Tranquility won 2nd runner up.

Shahil Pravind from team Tranquility said they were a bit disappointed that they did not win the first prize but saw a ray of sunshine when they saw their winning voucher.

Their innovative idea was about creating a central database that will store information of citizens.

Information such as the Fiji National Provident Fund details, bank details or information that will be shared amongst other institutions will be made accessible in one place, said Mr Pravind.

This will be made accessible through a thumbprint or smartcard with the person’s permission.

The idea was inspired through his and other USP students’ experiences when registering for a semester at the university.

“We usually have to do a lot of running around, justifying and travellling to get our requirements,” said Shahil.

Despite the fact that their exams started, the team worked hard to balance their exam preparation and submit their ideas to the organisers.

Feedback:  monica.aguilar@fijisun.com.fj