Introducing Team MACARA from Indonesia

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

 

Team MACARA will represent Indonesia at the Imagine Cup 2011 worldwide finals in New York City in this coming July. The team is participating in the Embedded Development competition and will be competing with the other 19 teams from countries around the world in the same category.

Team MACARA developed a project call EDCOS. It offer as a solution to the problem of global warming, hunger, and renewable energy. EDCOS Project is a controlled system for the cultivation of algae and use algae as a powerful plant. EDCOS project presents a way of cheap, easy, but it has tremendous benefits to overcome the problems we are facing today.

The team consist of 4 members. They are Ednaz Hermawan, Alfan Presekal, Reza Bhaskoro Wibowo and Aditya Rinus Pratama Putra. All of them are from University of Indonesia at Indonesia and Catur Apriono is the mentor of the team.

This is just a short introduction of the team. Find out the latest from Team MACARA by liking the team on Facebook fans page, following them on Twitter or read their blog. You can also stay tune in my blog for more update on Team MACARA and event of Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Final at New York City.

by Ooi Keng Siang – MSPSMT via Ooiks’s Blog

Imagine Cup 2011 – Students Solve World Toughest Problem Through Game

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

In case if you don’t know about Imagine Cup and Game Design competition, Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition and in Game Design, Imagine Cup challenge the students to solve the world problem through game. Aren’t it is so cool that we can solve the world problem through game?

How can we solve the world problem through game? Although I’m an application developer and a gamer too, but I can’t really come out any idea how game can do that. Every year, the students in Imagine Cup, Game Design category impress me with their great idea. Some of the game might be simple, but how they relate the game and the problem are very creative. I’m looking forward to meet them and learn about their idea in Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Final at New York City.

Meanwhile, if you are interested to how students can solve world problem through game this year, meet the finalist of Game Design in Imagine Cup 2011:

Want more? Check out the following too with more detail:

Imagine Cup Social Media Team – MSPs Head to New York City

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

Just one more month away from Microsoft Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals in New York City in this July. For those of you who are not already aware of the event, the Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition. More than 400 students from around the world will participate in the worldwide finals event and represent their countries.

This year I have a very special mission in Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals. I won’t be competing in any category nor challenge, but I will be attending as one of the Microsoft Student Partners Social Media Team. As a member of the Social Media Team, I will be responsible for raising awareness about the Imagine Cup and helping to tell the story of innovative students around the world. To learn more about the event, be sure to follow @imaginecup on Twitter and Microsoft Imagine Cup on Facebook. Also, I’ll be posting to this blog, sharing news and updates from my Facebook page and Twitter account.

I will be joined in New York City by 24 other Microsoft Student Partners who will be part of the social media team. Follow all of the MSPs on their journey to New York City by following this Twitter list.

by Ooi Keng Siang via Ooiks’s Blog

 

Imagine Cup 2011 Malaysia – Day 3

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

Just like the worldwide final in Imagine Cup, Imagine Cup Malaysia also have a mini half day culture day for all the competitors to enjoy and learn about the culture of the place. Since Imagine Cup 2011 Malaysia is having at Sarawak this year, so we will be exploring the unique culture of Sarawak this year. I’m super duper excited toward this activity because this is also my first time here at Sarawak.

All of the competitors are taken to the Sarawak Culture Village. Finally, after some tough competition in the hotel, we can have something green today! It is a small village purposely build for tourism purpose (Well, it is impossible for us to go all the way into the jungle to see the long house for now). There have Bidayuh Longhouse, Iban Longhouse, Penan Hut, Malay House, Chinese Farmhouse and many more. Other than that, there is also a theater for the multi-cultural performances. All competitors are invited to watch the traditional dance of Sarawak there. In the end, all competitors are invited to join them on the stages too. I’m not good in describing the view of the village through words, why don’t you take a look at the photos I had taken through out the whole activity by yourself.

Aren’t this year Imagine Cup Malaysia is very amazing? Yeah for sure.

by Ooi Keng Siang via Ooiks’s Blog

Imagine Cup 2011 Malaysia Result

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

So which team shall be flying Malaysia flag on the worldwide final of Imagine Cup 2011 at New York City, US this year? Let me give you the list of all the winner this year in Imagine Cup 2011 Malaysia.

Software Design Category

  • Champion: Cyber Knightz (UCTI)
  • First-runner Up: Filius Educata (UCTI)
  • Second-runner Up: Asia Science (UCTI)

Other Awards

  • Innovation Award: Cyber Knightz (UCTI)
  • Phone 7 Mobile Development Award: V-Real (TARC)
  • Azure Cloud Computing Award: RGBY (UKM)
  • Presentation Superstars Award: Asia Sciences (UCTI)

As you can see, UCTI swap the most prizes in Imagine Cup 2011 Malaysia and they won twice in Imagine Cup Malaysia so far. I bet the university is putting a lot of effort pushing their students in Imagine Cup competition. Well done and great job. Since last year Team HDC went all the way into top 6 of worldwide final of Software Design, so we are expecting the team this year to do even better! We are counting on you team Cyber Knightz to bring back the cup this year.

I shall be tagging along with the team to the worldwide final of Imagine Cup 2011 at New York City, US. I’m selected as one of the 25 Microsoft Student Partners of Social Media Team that will bring you all the most up to date of the event at NYC through social media channel. I can’t wait to be there. New York City, I coming together with Team Cyber Knightz.

Cyber Knightz (UCTI)

Team Members:

  • Tan Jit Ren
  • Chan Wai Lun
  • Ker Jia Chiun
  • Wong Mun Choong

Project Overview: Health3 (Pronounced as Healthy) is a health minded application that targets to improve the health of a cancer patient from the very basic needs of a human, which are food intakes, exercise and emotional needs. By just taking three simple steps provided in our application, which are customize, deploy and start monitoring, cancer patients can find all the useful utilities that will help them in improving their health and increasing the chance of survival.

 

Filius Educata (UCTI)

Team Members:

  • Mohamed Mahmoud Talaat El Bedwihi
  • Ong Yi Ling
  • Desiree Chow Yik Fong
  • Derek Ooi Jiun Yee

Project Overview: Our project is a one-stop solution that utilizes  web and mobile technologies in order to contribute greatly to the prevention of the serious issue of domestic abuse against women in urban areas. The web application is meant for the women themselves (victims or survivors) and for women’s rights groups. The general public and government bodies are also provided with minimal access. The mobile applications is mainly catered to the women themselves, and to their trusted friends. On the mobile side, our most important feature is the “panic response”. If a women is in an abusive situation, activating this function on her mobile phone will send out notifications to her trusted people and NGOs. Her location is identified using GPS, and an audio recording of what is going on will be stored securely elsewhere (on the cloud). this cloud be used as evidence in the future. In the web application, we provide functionality for the women to connect to each other and share their stories, to connect to the  women;s rights groups, to access available shelters, and to educate themselves on abuse through content that has been provided by the right groups. We also provide functionality fr the NGOs to reach out to the women with education content, shelter detail updates and to maintain statistical data that are to be viewed later on by government bodies. For the general public, we have incorporated a reporting system which they can easily use to anonymously report domestic abuse cases in their neighborhood. With this, we hope contribute in the fight towards gender equality and prevention of abuse towards women.

 

Asia Science (UCTI)

Team Members:

  • Hamed Mortaji
  • Perinba Selva Nayagi Ramachandran
  • Krishnashree A/P Tamby Raja
  • Ali Arabzadeh Ahaleriz

Project Overview: The project is an enterprise system that manages transmission of power in power substations. The project is divided into 3 major parts: Desktop Applications, Azure Application & Thin Client Application.

by Ooi Keng Siang via Ooiks’s Blog

 

 

Imagine Cup 2011 Malaysia – Day 2

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

Today is the day, the judgment day for all the competitors of Imagine Cup 2011 Malaysia. It all start at 9am sharp. All teams are given 10 minutes to present their idea / solution to the judges at their own booth. 10 minutes presentation at an open area is very tough I can said. I can know how nervous the competitors are through their face expression. Walking around at their own booth with a script while rehearse what they are going to present next.

While they are presenting, I was running around to take their photo (see below) and shooting their video. I hardly got time to learn about their great and innovation ideas wish I really wanted. the interesting thing is some of the competitors told me that they actually read my blog for those tips of presentation and follow my blog through out the event. Yeah, that is the reason why I here in the Imagine Cup 2011 Malaysia to blog about this great event happen at Kuching.

I was given a chance to give a talk to the secondary students whom come and learn about the great ideas bring by the top 30 teams. This remind me that some countries that are actually sending secondary students for the Imagine Cup because they bet the others in the local final. So I’m telling the secondary students to think out of the box as they might be the next top 30 who will be presenting at next year Imagine Cup Malaysia. Who’s know right?

After the whole busy morning, the top 6 teams that successfully enter the final has announced after lunch time. They are Filius Educata (UCTI), Excalibur (UTM), Asia Science (UCTI), KCast (KDU), Cyber Knightz (UCTI), RGBY (UKM)! 3 out of 6 teams from UCTI which the university that won the champion last year. I bet the university is putting a lot of effort and support on their students in Imagine Cup. This year, I’m manage to squeeze in and watch the top 6 teams presentation. Each teams blast me off with their nice polished user interface. Well done! The Imagine Cup Malaysia this year is sure getting tougher compare with last year.

For those who didn’t manage to enter the top 6 finalist, don’t give up. I can see you all have a great ideas or solutions but the presentation skill and user interface design skill are just not good enough compare to those who manage to enter the top 6. The world still need you all, the great ideas and solutions you all come out. So don’t give up and I really want to see you all standing on the stage again next year.

Next agenda waiting for us is the grand dinner. That what we are waiting for. The grand dinner with top 3 teams presentation and follow by the result announcement of the Imagine Cup 2011 Malaysia. We got traditional dance performance entertaining us while we all are having our dinner.  All 3 teams from UCTI won the top 3 places in Imagine Cup 2011 Malaysia. Great job UCTI. Want to know the final result of Imagine Cup 2011 Malaysia, check out my next post.

Update:

Thousand apologizes to Team KCast and The Third Cloud from KDU for renaming the photo wrongly.

by Ooi Keng Siang via Ooiks’s Blog

 

Imagine Cup 2010 Result Announced

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

Imagine Cup 2010 result just announced. Thailand had won the cup again this year. The result for all category are as follow:

Software Design Category

  • Champion: Skeek (Thailand)
  • First-runner Up: TFZR (Serbia)
  • Second-runner Up: OneBeep (New Zealand)

Embedded Development Category:

  • Champion: SmarterME (Taiwan)
  • First-runner Up: MCPC (Russia)
  • Second-runner Up: GERAS (France)

Game Design Category:

  • Champion: By Implication (Philippines)
  • First-runner Up: Nom Nom Productions (Belgium)
  • Second-runner Up: Gears Studio (France)

Digital Media Category:

  • Champion: Ka-Chi (Taiwan)
  • First-runner Up: Dreaming Spirits (Saudi Arabia)
  • Second-runner Up: Woolgathering (Singapore)

IT Challenge Category

  • Champion: NBRanger (China)
  • First-runner Up: Miklos Cari Sivila (Bolivia)
  • Second-runner Up: zxc1984 (Singapore)

Envisioning 2020 Award

  • Champion: Jigga-Dongxi (Taiwan)
  • First-runner Up: KOLA (India)
  • Second-runner Up: Target Locked (India)

Internet Explorer 8 Award

  • Champion: Rhea (Poland)
  • First-runner Up: LittleRitle (Poland)
  • Second-runner Up: CieszakTeam (Poland)
  • Accelerator: Samba Samba (Brazil)
  • Visual Search: BigTurtle (Russia)
  • Web Slice: Invention Task Force (Poland)

Next Generation Web Award

  • Champion: Wanna Be Alice (Korea)
  • First-runner Up: Rhea (Poland)
  • Second-runner Up: Samba Samba (Brazil)

Interoperability Award

  • Champion: Xormis (Jamaica)
  • First-runner Up: Uptiva Dreams IT (Brazil)
  • Second-runner Up: Chandradimuka (Indonesia)

Touch & Tablet Accessibility Award

  • Champion: Team Note-Taker (United States)
  • First-runner Up: OneView (United States)

Windows Phone 7 “Rockstar” Award

  • Champion: Beastware (United States)
  • First-runner Up: Tselina (Indonesia)
  • Second-runner Up: Hypo Team (Malaysia)

Resource from result announcement page and Imagine Cup twitter.

In addition, all finalist of Imagine Cup 2010 will get a Windows Phone 7. Wow, the best ever present given to all finalist. All of them now can develop Windows Phone 7 right on the new phone!

Although Team HDC from Malaysia didn’t make it this time but they go all the way to top 6 of Software Design category which never happen before on Malaysia team. They make us proud and they have sure bring Imagine Cup Malaysia to the next level. Guys and girls, don’t give up, this is not the end of the journey but the beginning of your great future! Even you guys want to join again next year or mentoring other team, I will still support you guys!

Imagine Cup 2011 will be at New York, USA. First Lady, Michele Obama, sends all finalist a virtual welcome to New York next year. Yeah. I though Imagine Cup will never make it at USA due to visa problem, but year 2011 will going be there. Sure a lot of fun at there. I’m interested to join again man!

For more detail visit Imagine Cup website.

By the way, I don’t see Joe Wilson this year, where is he?

by Ooi Keng Siang via Ooiks’s Blog

PolyU’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Global Student Challenge (GSC) 2011 – Date Extended

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

If  you are a high school student or undergraduates and have a great business plan or a great product, don’t miss once-in-a-life-time opportunity to enter the PolyU’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Global Student Challenge (GSC) 2011 and win your team a free trip to Hong Kong, the Asian’s World City.

GSC is an international business plan competition for high school students and full time undergraduates worldwide. Shortlisted teams will be sponsored for their flights to Hong Kong with accommodation provided on PolyU campus in June 2011 to present their business proposals in front of renowned business executives and venture capitalists and compete for the Gold, Silver, Bronze and Commendation Award and win the cash prizes up to USD5,000!

Requirement:

  • Have a brilliant business idea about a product or service, which may include but not limited to one of the sub-themes: Health & Wellness, Lifestyle, Environment & Sustainability.
  • Form your team – Each team should consist of three students in the Secondary School Division and three to four students in the University Division. A mentor is compulsory for the Secondary School Division and optional for the University Division. You are welcome to form a ‘joint team’ with members from another secondary school or university.
  • All team members must be upper form secondary school students or undergraduates for their respective division at the time of the Semi-Final and Final rounds of the Challenge to be held between 11 and 17 June for 2011 Challenge.

For more information, visit the link below:

Registration date had extended to 31 October 2010 due to many requests from students worldwide.

I had personally experienced this great event on 2010. It was really well organized and I did learn a lot from other competitors around the world. It is a competition worth to spend some sleepless night and come out a proposal. Don’t miss this opportunity again this time if you miss it last time.

by Ooi Keng Siang

PolyU Global Student Challenge 2010 – Day 6

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

Today is the final round of global student challenge 2010 for both university division and secondary school division. They were required to present on the stage. I had a great time listen to the presentation of the top 6 teams for university division. I can see all presenters are quite nervous on the stage and begin to panic. As usual, the judges throw a lot of tough questions to them as well.

We all had the chances to watch the elevator pitch  video before each presentation start, but it was kind of weird to me. I though elevator pitch is something like you bump into a VC / CEO of some company and then you want to pitch / sell your idea to him/her in the elevator. The key idea is to let the VC interested on your idea or product and hope they give you a second chance to present more to him later on, but it is totally something different in this competition. Their elevator pitch was just like a super short presentation in 60 seconds to the video camera, that all. Wound anyone shout their product name out loud at elevator when you bump into a VC in the elevator? Aren’t it is scary if 4 persons pitch their idea to the VC in a small size of elevator?

Next is the Gala dinner and prize giving ceremony, a grand event at The Mira Hotel. The environment in the grand ballroom is nice. I heard it cost 1000 HKD per person. Wow! We had a very interesting talk as well, but I can’t remember his name. The talk was about social responsible as an entrepreneur. One of the responsible is don’t give too many money to your children. A good one!

Finally the prize giving ceremony, As we had already expected, SurgyPack from US won the gold award in university division because they product and presentation was so convincing. Team from UK and Australia bring home with Silver award together, I guess both team share the same score. I don’t really remember all the winning team list. I think I will just skip it here.

Today is suppose to be the last day for PolyU Global Student Challenge 2010 because the coming up 2 days will be free activity for competitors and all prize already given away. That mean 2 more days to play before we left Hong Kong! Let’s enjoy it to max!

by Ooi Keng Siang via Ooiks’s Blog

PolyU Global Student Challenge 2010 – Day 5

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

Day 5 at Hong Kong. It was a rainy day. Today start with group photo taking with all competitors from both university division and secondary division. I wish I can have a copy of the photo later on. After that, the Tai-chi experience. We had 2 tai-chi master here to teach us tai-chi. This was the first time I learn tai-chi through English language. Feeling kind of weird. Ops, I totally forgot all the tai-chi steps while following the master. If my master who teach me tai-chi last time know it, I’m definitely die for sure. Although this activity was short but it was very meaningful to me, like everyone from different countries and different races was there play tai-chi at the same time. Cool!

Next, we all went for a presentation given by Paul Pei, the executive director of sales and marketing from Ocean Park. We all though that this will be another boring presentation promoting Ocean Park, but we were wrong. The presentation was very interesting and funny. It share the story of Ocean Park, how Paul and his team re-brand their service to fight the mouse (Disneyland)! He show us the important of branding and how he did it. I really learn a lot from his talk. He is indeed a great speaker that make us laugh non-stop. I guess this is the reason make him the executive director of sales and marketing. One of the competitors actually commented that this was the first presentation in Hong Kong that he can stay awake until the end.

Following up next was the Ocean Park! There were lot of peoples there and most of them were tourist. The thing I want to see the most there is the panda! But we arrive on a bad timing because the panda was just finished it’s meal and went to sleep. All I can saw was it’s butt facing me while it sleeping facing the wall. Due to rainy day, some of the roller coaster stop servicing. Too bad for my team members who want to try that out. But it had nothing to do with me because I’m not a roller coaster lover and in fact I hate it. Impression of Ocean Park to me was small zoo + small theme park at a large park. A lot of construction is performing on the park, I guess they are still upgrading.

After the Ocean Park, we personally went for dinner ourselves. We went and try out steamboat. We saw a lot of shop promoting steamboat so we decided to try it out. Not bad actually, but I miss tom yam soup for steamboat at Malaysia.

That was all for today. Tomorrow will be the final round presentation for all top 6 teams for both university division and secondary division. I’m definitely going to watch their presentation. All the best for all teams that are going to present tomorrow.

by Ooi Keng Siang via Ooiks’s Blog