KUCHING, Jan 25: There are 15 Sarawakian teams which were shortlisted for the finale of the national level Junior Innovate (JI) Competition 2020.
According to a media statement from the organiser of the competition, Chumbaka Sdn Bhd, the Sarawakian teams being shortlisted for the finale of the competition were from SJK (C) Chung Hua Miri (Miri), SK St Francis Xavier (M) (Kanowit), SJK (C) Yee Ting (Kanowit) , SJK (C) Thai Kwang (Sibu), SJK (C) Sacred Heart (Sibu), SJK (C) Hock Lam (Kapit), SJK (C) Chung Hua No. 3 (Kuching), SJK (C) Chung Hua No. 4 (Kuching), SJK (C) Chung Hua No. 5 (Kuching), SK Trusan (Lawas), SJK (C) Sungai Jaong (Marudi) and SJK (C) Chung Hua Sambir (Samarahan).
The company said over 300 primary school teams submitted their projects for the JI 2020 competition.
It added the JI competition is an annual national-level event to inspire a digital creator mindset among primary school students.
The theme of this year’s competition was “A Game for Change – A Clean and Happy Earth”.
In this competition, students were tasked to design a game to promote positive change for nature with the use of open-source coding and micro-controllers.
Chumbaka, which is also a social enterprise, aims to develop children’s life skills by inspiring them to create with technology.
The company disclosed that Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA), Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation (SDEC) and Tabung Ekonomi Gagasan Anak Sarawak (TEGAS) are the national hosts for this year’s JI competition.
Meanwhile, Chumbaka’s principal consultant Dr Chew Yen Seng said,” Since 2018, Chumbaka has taken the initiative to organise this annual flagship event.
“We believe in this competition as a platform for all primary school students to showcase their creativity using open source programming and hardware.
“The year 2020 was particularly challenging but I was so impressed by the students’ effort and their awareness for our Mother Earth through the games that they have created,” said Chew.
Despite the multiple disruptions due to Covid-19, Chumbaka noted the competition had garnered overwhelming reception.
Approximately 1130 students and 500 plus teachers from 274 Malaysian primary schools participated in the large-scale competition.
After going through the preliminary and semi-final rounds, the result of the Top 30 teams in Malaysia was released on Monday night by the organiser.
The organiser revealed that the finalists would proceed on to the final round of the JI competition.
Finalists would be pitching their work live to the judges on the video conferencing tool Zoom.
Chumbaka said the entire competition would be streamed in real time to the public on FacebookLive ( https://www.facebook.com/chumbaka.asia/) at 10 am on January 31 (Sunday).
This would be followed by the closing ceremony of JI 2020 in the afternoon.
The closing ceremony would be officiated by Deputy Education Minister II Datuk Dr Mah Hang Soon, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering UK Tan Sri Kunasingham Sittampalam and SDEC head of innovation and entrepreneurship Hazwan Razak. — DayakDaily
