Blog

‘ICT in de wolken’ is a place for young enthusiastic ICT-talents in the
Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. It is designed to give whizzkids, students in
every school, a place where they can further develop their ICT skills and
education. These kids are in all levels of our secondary education; vmbo,
havo and vwo. This talent (ICT) – of which analysis has shown that it
exists, but needs to be challenged – has to be tracked down early for
further development. We create challenging educational material for youth,
with open connections to educational institutes and ICT-companies. Not only
is “ICT in de wolken’ a breeding place for young talents, it is also a
laboratory for new forms of digital education.

Through the IBM Poseidon project, we participate in a worldwide research
regarding the responsible water consumption. The Poseidon project is an
open, global initiative, currently run by volunteers, aiming at two main
goals: (1) Raising awareness on the (over)use of water in global
agriculture, by creating (primary school, high school and university)
education, and (2) Developing low-cost technology for 3rd world farmers to
support them in lowering their water-use. We are all quite aware of the
importance of the water as a natural resource and there are plenty examples
of its scarcity. But what do we do for it? In CAS, we run the Poseidon
project, in order to shift the way we consume water and contributing into
making our planet smarter.

‘ICT in de wolken’ is a directly related to Poseidon and is targeting
secondary education through which students will become aware of the growing
scarcity of (drinking) water in the world. Students are going to build a
lightproof greenhouse in which they will grow a mustard plant by using a
raspberry-pi, led light, a moisture sensor, a barometer and a water valve.
The goal of this project is to consume as little water as possible with
maximum results.

This was initiated two weeks ago by Robert-Jan Sips, and during these 2
weeks the high-school students started the construction of the greenhouse.
They enthusiastically embraced the project and are already starting to
overtake the schedule.

We as staff are looking forward to the next few weeks, the competition is
really starting to heat up as every team wants to be the best.

If you have any questions about this project, please contact Robert-Jan
Sips, Maurits van Bellen or Robert Iepsma.