KUCHING, July 14: Swinburne Sarawak teams dominated and were crowned champions in all tracks of the recent Innovate Sarawak 2021 competition.
According to a media release today, the competition, which was organised by Dream Catcher and coordinated by Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation (SDEC) and Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research (MESTR), provided a platform for young Sarawak talents to demonstrate innovative solutions.
It was participated by 61 teams, ranging from third to final year students, including groups from University Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), Swinburne University and Curtin University.
The competition has three tracks namely Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and Mobile and Web, with a total prize money of RM1,500 for all categories respectively.
SDEC emphasised that this competition allowed students to present their ideas and tackle real-world problems faced by utilising electronic, mechanical and software/mobile/cloud app solutions and technologies to deliver solutions via application.
SDEC chief executive officer (CE) Sudarnoto Osman emphasised that the competitions were a great way for students to showcase their knowledge and skills while also stimulating the team’s creativity to bring practical solutions.
“We are proud of the achievements of the undergraduates who participated at the national-level competition. Even if you did not make it to the finals, we believe you will benefit greatly from this competition.
“Your project today might be the start of a more complete innovation process tomorrow. So, keep innovating,” he encouraged in his opening speech.
The team from Swinburne University comprised of Lilian Siaw Yung Ping, Kong Hao Qing and Yeong Kah Ho won the Artificial Intelligence (AI) track with their project entitled ‘Computer-aided Drug Discovery of AAK1’ and ‘GAK Dual-target Inhibitors to Stop SARS-CoV-2 Viral Entry into Host Cells’.
The students who were guided by Dr Xavier Chee Wezen constructed a Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) algorithm to identify potential drugs that could block the entry of coronavirus into human cells.
Swinburne Sarawak teams also won first and third place in the Mobile & Web competition.
Isaac Asante won first place, with his project entitled ‘Development of a Low Budget Covid-19 Self-Quarantine Monitoring System’.
Under the supervision of Associate Professor Dr Lau Bee Theng, the team created a platform called Trackia, a foolproof Covid-19 quarantine monitoring system that includes a location-tracking native Android application, a web application that serves as an administrative dashboard, and third-party analytics tools.
Meanwhile, students Toh Kah Hie, Elwin Chan Kok Wei, and Malika Arjun Liyanage received third place for their project ‘A Web-based Learning and Development Platform for Employee Engagement and Performance’.
The students developed a platform based on industry requirements that allows human resource managers to monitor employee learning progress while allowing employees to improve their professional skills, knowledge, and experience within their organisation, under the supervision of Dr Brian Loh Chung Siong and Dr Vong Wan Tze.
Albe Chai Bing Zhe won the IoT track with his project ‘Health Monitoring System of Tomato Plant’ using Image Recognition and Machine Learning, on which he was supervised by Associate Professor Dr Chua Hong Siang.
With object detection and classification models, this was presented as an IoT solution to assist farmers in monitoring environmental parameters and predicting the health state of tomato plants.
Aside from winning the competition, participants competed for a chance to win the competition’s subsidiary award, the Excellence Award, for which team Swinburne Sarawak, which won the AI track, was named as the winner, taking home RM1,000 cash prize.
Innovate Sarawak is a part of Innovate Malaysia, Malaysia’s largest design competition available to all Malaysian undergraduate students in their final year, in which all nine teams will participate at the national-level which will take place in August this year. — DayakDaily
