KUCHING, Aug 17: Team Little Giants from SJK Chung Hua Krokop Miri emerged as Sarawak’s elite junior coders after beating nine other teams to clinch the championship of the BugCrusher Junior Hackathon 2022 recently.
Team Moaaatch from SJK(C) Chung Hua Bintulu and Team Art from SJK Chung Hua Batu 4.5 Kuching won the first and second runner-up titles respectively.
In the senior category, SMK Chung Hua Miri stole the show with three teams – Team Zero Coke (champion), Team Spartan (first runner up) and Team YEC (second runner up) bagging the top three prizes.
On Aug 6, 40 students and teachers gathered to attend the BugCrusher 2022 closing ceremony held at Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) Creative Heritage Innovation Centre here where 10 teams coming from different cities in Sarawak competed in a final showdown to fix programming bugs on their website or software as well as pitch their enhancement to a panel of judges.
The event was organised by RealFun Learning Centre and Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation (SDEC) along with collaborators Champs Education Miri and supported by the State Education Department.
In a press release today, RealFun learning Centre founder and director Teo Yuang Teck emphasised that teamwork is very important in this programme as the students had no prior knowledge of the mission, what were the bugs to solve and what the theme was.
“All team members, including the teacher, need to communicate well with each other, set clear roles and responsibilities. The team needs to skillfully combine both technical and non technical skills as a team to excel in this hackathon.
“All the STEM programmes provide different skills and exposure to the participants, both from technical and soft skills. Our goal is not only to grow our future talent in coding, in artificial intelligence, but most importantly also their ability to learn, to adapt and work together as a team, critically, and creatively to solve the various challenges that will be faced by them in the future,” he said.
Sarawak Science Centre interim chief executive officer (CEO) and head of Talent Development at the Ministry of Education, Innovation and Talent Development Shariman Jamil emphasised that the Ministry is always encouraging the youth of Sarawak to engage in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) because the State need more problem solvers for the future.
“Our partners who have made the event happen are working tirelessly to help Sarawakian students access the latest and best of technology to help you upskill and choose a career you want in the future,” SDEC head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Department Hazwan Razak added.
The event also witnessed the launching of the upcoming GirlsCode 2022, a mobile app challenge exclusively for girls aged 10-17 in Sarawak that aims to boost STEM engagement and help young Sarawakian women become future problem solvers. — DayakDaily
