Budding engineers display brilliance

IF THE people of Mozambique and other countries adopted the blockchain voting system designed by a University of KwaZulu-Natal student to eradicate human manipulation, violent scenes like those along the Maputo Corridor last week could be a thing of the past.

Protesters gathered on the Mozambican side of the Lebombo border near Mpumalanga to protest against their nation’s recent election results.

Munekayi Antoine Mfuamba, a fourth-year computer engineering student at UKZN, designed the “Blockchain-Based Secure Voting System”, one of the projects on public display at the UKZN’s “Open Day” at the Howard College campus on Friday.

The UKZN’s final year electrical, electronic and computer engineering (EECE) students have undergone a Capstone Course (culmination of learning and experience) and produced projects that tackle some of the world’s problems.

Mfuamba’s project addresses vote tampering with a “watertight” online voting system aimed at providing greater transparency.

“Essentially, my blockchain system is about security, and removing the necessity of trusting individuals because they could easily be swayed.”

Mfuamba said he interviewed Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) people for his research and learnt that anyone hired by the Chapter 9 institute could count votes.

“A lot of trust is placed on individuals to determine an outcome that has huge impact on the nation and generations to come.”

Mfuamba said a lot was at stake considering that last year’s GDP figure was $377 billion (R6.2 trillion).

“Lots of entities would want to have some influence on that.

“The entire purpose was to remove any form of human interaction. It is called ‘TrustEngineering’ to ensure the voting process is accurate, fair, precise and infallible.

“I’ve used technology and various concepts to create a voting platform.”

Mfuamba said that each block was unique, contained the details of the voter and couldn’t be decrypted.

“It is a web platform that can be accessed from anywhere and has a trapdoor function. There is no way to undo the info and updates can be seen live by everyone.”

Mindful from his first year of study that there would be a final year project, he started to think about something that would be outstanding.

“I wanted to build something cool that would impact society and the elections that happened in May came to mind.

“I did some research and saw that the US went digital in 2018. That’s when I discovered the blockchain concept and fell in love with it.

“I understand we usually fall behind the US technologically and eventually head in that direction at some point so I said why not start the conversation for us in Africa?”

His blockchain idea has brought him “long nights” over the past three months and he continued with refining this week.

“It has been intense considering that we have to juggle other modules as well.

“It’s like I was meant to do something like this because I was always tops in technology projects in my school days.”

Mfaumba said he wouldn’t be surprised if the IEC came knocking on his door about his project and hoped to be an industry expert in the future.

Andre Almedia’s lit idea will also be among those exhibited on Friday.

Almedia, a BSc Engineering student focused on computer engineering, has created a “Smart Audio-Driven Lighting & FX Controller for Karaoke and Music Events”.

His creation helps DJs and audio engineers to use lighting more effectively and remotely at events at a far more cost effective rate.

Almeida’s bag of effects are contained in a plastic controller box with dimensions smaller than a ruler length and a few centimetres thick, complete with a dial and buttons for manual operations.

It has various input ports for lighting equipment to be plugged in and the intelligence to read the beat of the music being played to produce effects in synchronisation with the sound vibes.

“Initially it does seem a bit underwhelming when you first look at it but when you plug in lighting equipment and the device is able to control it, people get taken aback.

“Based on the audio that is playing in an area, it can take that noise and do a bunch of stuff to synchronise it with your lighting effects, whether it’s moving heads or LED fixtures or whatever is on that standard.”

Almeida said his invention would be useful to mobile DJs who play at different venues and are required to multi-task sound, lighting and deejaying.

“It’s hard to manage all of that. Now they can just plug and play.”

Almeida said the inspiration for his idea came from his part-time work as a DJ, a karaoke party and an audio engineer at various gigs for 10 years.

In events hosted in small and medium-sized venues, he noticed that musicians and audio engineers focussed their energies and resources on audio equipment and lighting was usually forgotten.

“That’s because the equipment that works well is really expensive and most people don’t have training on how to use complicated equipment and gear.

“I’ve decided to make something that is easy to use and affordable.”

He said UKZN had done a good job teaching students aspects of electronics, maths and science skills.

“All of which is important to design and build a system like this. There’s nothing on the market that compares to this.”

Almeida was one of few students to propose a “problem” that needed fixing to his supervisor (Associate Professor Tahmid Quazi, from UKZN’s school of engineering), and after an in-depth discussion he received approval for his desired project.

Quazi said courses typically carried eight credits, but this carried 32.

“This course is one done individually and not taught. The students were given a problem to investigate, research, and provide a solution by applying maths, science, engineering knowledge, and advanced engineering to develop a prototype.

“It is then tested and deployed before it is reported on.”

He said the students had done a fantastic job and every year they were pleasantly surprised at the work they produced when pushed to the limits.