KUCHING, Sept 8: Three students from SMK Lutong, Miri made Sarawak proud when their team, Girl Code, was crowned the national champion of Shell NXplorers Malaysia 2023, after competing with five other teams from schools across the country.
Shell NXplorers is Shell’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) related competition which challenges school students to work in teams to design and develop solutions to real-world problems within the nexus of food-water-energy.
Girl Code, which comprises Nirelly Efua Nigel, Violete Sim and Ashley Saran Francis, came up with an invention called Compost Manager.
This is an E-Compost composting system designed to meticulously monitor both the conditions and progress of compost heaps. With the integration of a user-friendly app, Compost-Mate simplifies the monitoring process, making it accessible to composting enthusiasts of all levels.
By providing real-time data on essential factors such as temperature, humidity, and aeration, this invention ensures that the composting process remains optimised for efficiency and effectiveness.
Siti Sulaiman, Country Chair of Shell Malaysia and senior vice president, Upstream Malaysia, emphasised that the students’ courage in challenging the norm and thinking critically towards a sustainable future demonstrates that Malaysian youth are instrumental in shaping a brighter future for the country.
“It’s really inspiring to see the students in our Shell NXplorers programme facing obstacles with resilience and collaborating to overcome them, in their pursuit to leverage innovation in designing solutions that will potentially address the major global challenges the world faces,” she said in a media release today.
The proud members of Girl Code said: “We are truly honoured to be awarded grand champion of Shell NXplorers Malaysia 2023 and thank Shell for this valuable experience. The valuable lessons learnt in this programme has empowered us to look beyond the usual and delve deeper in real-life problems to come up with solutions, which we hope will bring a positive impact to our communities.”
A special prize for the Best Presenter was awarded to Nichelle Essabelle James, a member of team XO_Leiune from SM All Saints from Sabah for her eloquence and detailed explanation on her team’s invention.
Six schools—two finalists each from Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak—participated in the national finals after emerging as state winners and runners up at the state-level of the Shell NXplorers Malaysia competition.
The finalist schools were SMK Pekan Telipok and SM All Saints from Sabah; SMK Bintulu and SMK Lutong from Sarawak, and SMK Bandar Puncak Jalil and SMK Aminuddin Baki from Peninsular Malaysia.
The panel of jury for the grand finals comprised Norizah Othman (general manager, Malaysia Projects, Shell Malaysia Upstream); Tengku Azrul Tengku Azhar (director Regulatory Facilitation, Digital Enabler Division, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC)), and Ida Hairani Bakar (principal assistant director, Corporate Social Responsibility & Promotion Unit), and Sports, Co-curricular and Arts Division of Ministry of Education.
With the support of the Ministry of Education, Shell NXplorers Malaysia worked with over 1,000 secondary school students from 25 schools across Malaysia. These students were given the opportunity to gain hands-on STEM learning, with a focus on technology.
Shell NXplorers is a global education initiative that empowers young people to address complex challenges faced by the world today and become agents of change by providing them with the tools, methodologies and skills needed to tackle real-world problems, through collaboration, innovation and interdisciplinary approaches. — DayakDaily
