BY Nkosazana Ngwadla
The A-Team from the Technopreneurship Centre within the School of Consumer Intelligence and Information Systems at the University of Johannesburg emerged victorious in the NEMISA 2022 provincial datascience hackathon, and the national hackathon held in Durban earlier this year.
Their ground-breaking innovation, Falsify, a WhatsApp chatbot that fact-checks information in real-time, outshone competitors, and secured the prestigious top spot. The University expressed pride in the team, “Congratulations to the A-Team for their exceptional work and for showcasing the University of Johannesburg’s commitment to fostering student #4IR, innovation, and academic excellence!”
One of the team members, Kenan Kasongo wrote, “I’m thrilled to share that my team and I recently won the overall prize at the Nemisa data science hackathon in Durban! Our solution, Falsify is a fake news detection bot on WhatsApp that uses data science algorithms and machine learning to identify and flag potentially misleading or false information.
It was an incredible experience working alongside some of the brightest minds in the industry, and I’m so proud of what we were able to achieve in such a short amount of time. Winning the overall prize is a true honor, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to apply my skills and knowledge to address real-world challenges like fake news.
I’m excited to see how we can take Falsify to the next level and make a real impact in the fight against misinformation. Thank you to Nemisa for hosting such an amazing event, and to my team for their hard work and dedication.”
Image: LinkedIn
