RIT Croatia students develop web and mobile solution for monitoring air quality and pollution in collaboration with A1 Hrvatska

RIT Croatia and A1 Hrvatska signed a Memorandum of Agreement at the Zagreb campus and announced the first project: RIT students from the Croatian and American campuses will develop a software solution for monitoring air pollution.

This is a project that four teams of senior IT / web and mobile computing technology students will work on as part of the Senior Development Project course at RIT. This course includes work on real projects for real clients - companies in Croatia and America. Project teams consist of six to seven students from RIT campuses in Zagreb, Rochester, Dubrovnik and Dubai, with each team including students from different RIT campuses.

One of this year's clients is A1 Hrvatska. This company is part of A1 Telekom Austria Group – the leading provider of digital services and communication solutions in Central and Eastern Europe. A1 Telekom Austria Group operates in seven countries providing services for approximately 24 million customers. 

Students will work on developing a web and mobile solution for the business user (system administrator) and the public, which will measure the concentration of particulate matter and air quality, its pollution, in real time. It will connect the mobile application to an A1 Digital IoT platform that collects and analyzes data collected through sensors on IoT devices in the cloud. These sensors communicate with the A1 platform thanks to the NB IoT (Narrowband Internet of Things) network, which allows the flow of information from locations where the standard mobile signal has no penetration, and at this time A1 Hrvatska is the first and only provider with national coverage of the NB IoT network.

"Working on real projects with real companies using the latest technologies allows students to gather immensely important real-world experience and knowledge that they will be able to apply in future. Working on such a project results in significantly easier and faster adaptation of students to new business environments, while giving their future employers insight into the students' real competencies, which is a win-win situation for all, " said Dr. Martin Žagar, who is driving and teaching this course.

Teams working on A1 project will research, develop, design and test a functional A1 software solution, including meetings and client communication, cost and timeframe evaluation and project evaluation, with a focus on overall software development as well as user experience and accessibility solutions.

"We are happy to collaborate with RIT Croatia to raise the interest of the student population in the area of ​​software solutions of this type, but also to support young individuals who bring the future of our business. As we are currently the only national coverage of the NB IoT network, participating in this project is a great opportunity for students to enhance their theoretical knowledge and complement them with hands-on experience in creating the latest technological solutions that brings real benefits for society. Working on a real business case will enable them to have a high degree of understanding of business processes during application development, resulting in greater competitiveness upon graduation and entry into the job market. In addition to developing students' competences, this collaboration also brings the very important benefit of a fresh perspective on the mobile application development process. We are also pleased to have the opportunity to expand the brand and export A1 Hrvatska know-how outside our country through cooperation with international student teams,” said Ivan Gabrić, A1 Leadership team member and Senior Business Customer Director.

In addition to the A1 Hrvatska sponsored project, teams of students will work on three other software development projects for business clients worldwide. One of them, also sponsored in Croatia, will focus on developing solutions that will raise the profile of Croatian health tourism. The other two are based in the US where students will work on document management software and on software for distributing toys to children of less material status.