A full list of student projects can be seen below.
Student projects
Red Team - DataHealth
Challenge: Sexual health services portal
Challenge Sponsor: Lambeth Borough Council
Team members: Joseph McCracken, Ioana Bottez, Matteo Fortier, Daniela Stanciu, Edwin Youbirdmurali
Motivated in part by the need for a more comprehensive digital health strategy following the pandemic, Lambeth Council sought a solution to their disconnected health services, including sexual health clinics, GP surgeries, and pharmacies. As each operate their own websites sharing the information on the services they provide, opening hours, contact details, and booking service, finding the service which works best for individual citizens can be complicated.
The Red Team were challenged to develop a single information portal to helps citizens find the most convenient service and up to date information across Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham. The data was required to automatically updated based on services operated by the providers and should provide an appointment booking system with integration to a number of different platforms.
Using software to continually source links to sexual health facilities in real-time, while retaining robust data security through encryption of personally identifying information, the students provided a single platform for staff to keep vital information up to date. By also building in a reporting function to flag when information was out of date, the team could save the council many hours of fact checking, allowing them to focus on strategic priorities around public health.
Blue Team - TherapEasy
Challenge: Occupational health assessment
Challenge Sponsor: Richmond and Wandsworth Councils
Team members: Joshua Harris, Rhys Williams, Zhenghao Li, Era Mullahasani Dula, Smaranda Parincu
Pushed by Occupational Therapy’s high demand, Richmond and Wandsworth Councils wanted to develop a solution that standardised processes for submitting requests to the council for this critical service.
The Blue Team were challenged to understand the different types of requests that citizens are required to make and develop a solution that allows them to submit all the relevant information themselves in a mobile optimised format. These submissions, when complete, would also need to be categorised and assigned to the correct council resource. Citizens would also need to be kept informed of the progress of their request, and any solution to individual problems presented in parallel with a cost benefit analysis, so the council could make informed investment decisions regarding therapy options.
Through the creation of a prototype web application, the Blue Team leveraged digitised patient records to create a self-assessment platform that connected citizens with occupational therapists in real-time. By employing an automated categorisation function, the group could provide a standardised platform for self-assessment which minimised the administration work that needed to be performed by occupational therapists, improving job satisfaction and patient outcomes.
Grey Team – Bulky Waste Collection
Challenge: Citizen waste collection platform
Challenge Sponsor: Kingston and Sutton Borough Councils
Team members: Andrei Balcau, Iris Simionas, Zheshan Cao, Savraj Bassi, Dimitria-Adnana Cuptor
Kingston and Sutton provide additional services for waste collection in addition to household garbage collection, such as bulky white goods collection. To improve service, Kingston and Sutton Borough Councils wanted a streamlined solution that would speed up collection.
The Grey Team were tasked with matching citizen requests for waste collection with a pre-approved group of small businesses. The council had traditionally acted as an intermediary between citizens and its main waste collection contractor, causing bottlenecks and slow service. The new solution was required to have a self-service request form for citizens to use and chart their waste’s collection process, and allow small businesses to register as collection agents and allow them to bid or accept new jobs.
Through the creation of an online platform, the team created a market of competing contractors which provided quicker levels of service to citizens requesting waste removal. Furthermore, with digital tools facilitating the growth of a market to deal with service requests, the team could extract Sutton and Kingston Borough Councils from the process of acting as a bottleneck to services and free their time to work more efficiently.
Yellow Team – LCA Scheduler
Challenge: Employee rostering platform
Challenge Sponsor: London City Airport
Team members: Issa Kabir, Jason De Souza, Chloe Fraser, Shiwen Qin, Ioana-Alexandra Ghinea, Xichao Peng
London City Airport’s staffing levels are largely dictated by season, with the busiest periods being in summer with smaller peaks throughout the course of the year, like ski season. To provide the best passenger experience, the airport needs to ensure the right number of staff are on duty at the right time.
The Yellow Team were asked to build an employee rostering platform that gave managers real-time visibility of “on duty” staff and forecast the level of staff needed at any one point, based on predicted passenger levels. Staff would also need to be able to check their shift times, view their work history and accepted overtime on the platform.
By creating a single employee rostering platform powered by a bespoke scheduling algorithm for the airport, the team could centralise shift management from several overlapping excel sheets into a single easy to use platform which accounted for day-to-day changes in passenger footfall. The team also incorporated employee preference into shift availability to ensure that forecasts on necessary staff levels could be actioned while accounting for possible staff leave.
Green Team – Bristol Airport Parking Dashboard
Challenge: Passenger car parking optimisation
Challenge Sponsor: Bristol Airport
Team members: Hoang Linh Mai, Sumeet Saini, Xiaoming Zhang, Zechuan Duan, Ignacio Serrano Figueroa
Bristol Airport has some of the busiest car parks in the UK, with daily peaks in activity at the airport causing periods of limited parking availability and impacting customer service. This caused leadership at the airport to explore historic and environmental data to make car park management more efficient and profitable.
The Green Team were challenged to provide a data visualisation tool that accounted for historical peaks and troughs in car park usage which could be used by management at the airport to optimise parking solutions.
Providing a modular platform integrating forecasting for delayed flights, weather issues and seasonal spikes in real-time, quantifying the impact these environmental factors would have on car park wait times, the team turned around a solution which allowed management to chart opportunities for expanded service beyond the initial brief.
Orange Team - DaVis
Challenge: Social care planning and forecasting data platform
Challenge Sponsor: Kingston and Sutton Borough Councils
Team members: Yongqi Du, Sebastian-Mihai Mesca, Manish Ponniathil Sudhir, Fahim Mohammed, Guangzhong Chen
Providing social housing and temporary accommodation for citizens is a challenging problem. At Kingston and Sutton Borough Councils and beyond, there is a long wait list for council provided accommodation. Coupled with high demand and low supply, this makes the process for allocation of council accommodation a vital part of councils’ work.
To assist with this, the Orange Team were tasked with developing a data analytics and visualisation tool that allows for planning, forecasting and review of social housing stock in the borough. The system needed to be customisable and able to factor in inputs which would impact allocation, such as number of rooms, circumstances of potential tenants, and waitlist time.
The team developed DaVis, a tool which utilised a ‘hermit crab’ model to adjust social housing offerings to the number of tenants and calculate what could be released from the property to provide incentives for downsizing. By also enabling for the customisation of the model to account for policy impact, the team provided an agile data visualisation platform which could keep pace with policy to improve outcomes for council tenants and the council.
Black Team – Hounslow Recycling Hub
Challenge: Smarter recycling service platform
Challenge Sponsor: Hounslow Borough Council
Team members: Zihao You, Haoxuan Feng, Fatlir Topalli, Kacper Dudzinski, Ai Jian, Mirela Manoleva
In addition to providing regular waste collection, Hounslow Borough Council provide additional services for citizens to recycle household items such as televisions and microwave ovens. To support the council’s strategic initiative “Greener Hounslow”, the challenge sponsors wanted to develop a more efficient alternative to recycling.
The team were asked to create a system to improve the service of collections by matching citizen requests for collection with a pre-approved group of small businesses. The solution would need to remove the council as a go-between on waste collection between citizens and its main contractor, have a self-service service request form, have a mechanism to allow local businesses to participate in the recycling market and provide a better speed of service.
Testing their design with end-users to ensure that they created a user journey in line with customer expectations, the team created an interactive website to inform and engage residents in recycling services, with configurations to enable export to different recycling systems in different councils.
Purple Team – Green Waste Collection
Challenge: Green waste collection platform
Challenge Sponsor: Kingston and Sutton Borough Councils
Team members: Septimiu-Iulian Calin, Mayurapiriyan Ramasamy, Umar Mohammad, Zahra Sadat Ghorashi, Miruna-Ioana Tudoreanu
London Councils provide a number of additional services for citizens outside of standard household garbage collection, notably in collecting green waste from gardens. Kingston and Sutton Borough Council wanted a solution that would improve the service of these collections, as well as introduce new opportunities for local business.
The team were tasked with creating a system that matched citizen requests for waste collection with a pre-approved group of small businesses, removing the council from its traditional place as an intermediary between a large green waste contractor and individual service users – speeding up service in the process. The new solution was also required to have a self-service request form for citizens to use and chart their waste’s collection process, and for small businesses to register as collection agents.
By designing an algorithm that measures market performance, the team built an incentive structure for local businesses to provide higher levels of local service with their digital solution. The system also built in a novel flexibility into the service, introducing collection for garden waste only when citizens themselves flagged the need for its removal – cutting down on overheads of unnecessary regular green waste delivery.
To learn more about how industry can work with King’s academics to make a lasting impact through student projects, check out our Enterprise and Engagement webpage.