Cognizant’s Stall at Maker Faire Singapore Showcases a Digital Vision for Singapore

Singapore, July 24, 2017 — At Maker Faire Singapore (July
22-23), digital services leader Cognizant’s stall showcasing the company’s
proprietary technology to determine the ‘happiness index’ of visitors based on
their facial expressions received overwhelming response from the large turnout
of children, families and technology professionals. Captured and analyzed on
iPads, the expressions ranged from funny faces to broad smiles and translated
into happy-faced emojis on a large screen, highlighting the company’s theme for
the event: A Smart Nation is a Happy Nation. At the end of the first day,
the Happiness Index soared to 93.89%, underscoring the link between happiness
and an atmosphere of learning and innovation. The demo elicited keen interest
from the guest of honor, Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore’s Minister for
Foreign Affairs and Minister-in-charge of the country’s Smart Nation Program
Office.

A Maker Faire sponsor for the second year in a row,
Cognizant had organized a range of hands-on activities leveraging its digital
capabilities to create unique learning experiences for visitors. Children and
young visitors were treated to a tabletop basketball game that used a
pre-programmed micro:bit device to keep and display scores. Cognizant’s digital
experts guided young minds on coding and writing simple programs to do other
fun things with micro:bit. This was particularly significant in view of the
planned roll-out of micro:bit devices to primary and secondary school students
in Singapore for coding education over the next two years.

What fascinated tech professionals and businessmen alike at
the stall was a real estate app, built using Cognizant’s cutting-edge augmented
reality (AR) capabilities to bring real estate maps to life as 3D pop-up
structures and enable visitors to walk through and examine the properties as
they would in real life. Cognizant experts used this demo to explain the
far-reaching potential of AR technology in the context of Singapore’s Smart
Nation initiative.

As part of its efforts to spark greater interest in STEM
(science, technology, engineering and math) education, Cognizant organized a
mobile app-building workshop #JustAppify, giving more than 40 children, aged 13
and above, an opportunity to explore and experience the promise of digital
technologies shaping our world. Cognizant’s digital experts guided the children
through ideation, design and coding, as they produced their very own customized
music player apps. It was an exhilarating experience for the children.