competition

 

• Champion: Lingeshvaaran A/L Linganathar
• First Runner Up: Marcus Hew Mun Kok
• Second Runner Up: Emir Saidov
• 4th Place: Chan Soon Hong
• 5th Place: Yacine Ali Bouzair
• 6th Place: Yeo Wooi Lok
• Consolation Prizes:     
  • Loke Jun Hao
  • Oo Yee Ling
  • Ong Shao An
  • Gloria Shalom

• Champion: Neekita Sewnundun
• First Runner Up: Lim Kai Shen
• Second Runner Up: Louis Lim Jia Le
• 4th Place:  Taonga Lungu
• 5th Place: Kylie Lee Jia Xhing
• 6th Place: Tan Zheng Xiong
• Consolation Prizes:     
  • Nur Sarah Adha Binti Adam
  • Thye Wen Yu
  • Poulomi Jayesh Joshi
  • Ong Khai Liang

This summer has never been so amazing as we heard about our students’ experiences in the recently concluded The Great Lab (TGL) Summer Workshop, that was organized by CREST, a not-for-profit entity that was initiated to create a platform that promotes the industry, academia, and government to work together on research, design and development activities.

Participation in the workshop was on a selection basis; 49 of our APU students submitted a proposal to be qualified for the workshop, in which, 10 of them were selected for the event. The students embarked on a 4-days journey of knowledge and discovery; as they learned more about the relevant technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), which are useful towards their ideation processes.

In addition, throughout the 4 days, students were trained on structured thinking, problem solving and pitching presentations, as they were given a task of developing an idea that was pitched to industry judges of the workshop. Our Diploma in Information & Communications Technology with a specialism in Software Engineering graduate, Summer Kho Zhi-Yuen, worked together with her team mates from other universities and eventually emerged as the 1st Prize winner at the pitching session!

In overall, it was an exciting experience for the students who attended the workshop. With better industry-ready skills, we look forward to seeing them excel in their future careers!

We are pleased to share that our student, Yelena Stepanenko from the BA (Hons) in Accounting & Finance with a specialism in Internal Audit programme excelled at the Maybank Go Ahead Challenge 2017. She was named the Campus Champion of APU, in which she successfully passed the National Finals and advanced to the Global Finals of the challenge.

Throughout her preparation for the challenges,  our team of lecturers, Mr. Ritzeraynn Rashid, Dr. Jugindar Singh, Ms. Rohizan Ahmad. Ms. Rozitaayu Binti Zulkifli, Mr. Kantharow Apparavu and Mr. Muzammir Ahmad helped her by grooming her presentation skills, in which she became more confident and well-prepared for the National Finals and Global Finals. Kudos to the team!

Coming up next, she will be representing APU and Malaysia at the Global Finals, which will take place next week. We wish her all the best for the upcoming challenges! 

APU students nailed it again!

Recently, 2 teams from APU participated in the HACK2HIRED hackathon, that was known as the largest hackathon in Malaysia by far, according to the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC). The hackathon, organized by Dream Catcher, gained support from MDEC, Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) and Industry Centre of Excellence (ICoE) under the Malaysia Academic Industry Network (MYAIN). 118 participants who were all final year IT students took part in the competition, in which they were also exposed to IT industry players such as Cyber Village, Experian, ViTrox and Continental. 

The hackathon comprises 3 main activities – Warm Up Hack, Mini Hack Challenge and Main Hack Challenge, in which participants were tested on their technical strength and skill sets over 32 hours of the challenge. Tan Bee Lan, Teh Chun Jay, Leong Sen Fong, Raymond Nathan, Prethpal Singh Dhubb and Dayallen A/L Karunakaran, who were grouped into 2 teams, stood out as the 2 of the top 8 teams for the Main Hack Challenge.

It was an eye-opening experience for the students, as they gained feedback directly from the industry partners on the tasks given. This hackathon also helped to open doors for the students to job opportunities that are available in the market. Kudos to the teams and their mentor, Ms. Vinothini Kasinathan, for this achievement; we look forward to participating in more tech events like this in the future.

We are pleased to share that a 3-minute Avant-Garde research competition took place for the first time at APU recently.  Modelled upon the ‘3 Minute Thesis’ competition format which traditionally involves research students pitching their research to a panel of experts, the competition brief required students to formulate and present innovative, yet viable ideas to a panel of judges strictly within three minutes and using no more than a single slide. A total of 22 students competed at the final round, in which they pitched their ideas to the panel of judges comprising Dr. Lai Nai Shyan, Aida Zamnah Binti Zainal Abidin and Geetha A. Rubasundram who were from the Faculty of Computing, Engineering & Technology (FCET) and Faculty of Business & Management (FBM) respectively.

The competition attracted students from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and this was reflected in the novel and interesting ideas presented.  That said, three in particular stood out in terms of freshness, technical viability and market appeal.  Third place was awarded to Sofea Wong, whose idea, The Wonderlust App, made effecgive use of augmented reality to address problems encountered by travellers.  The judges awarded the runner up spot to Jaedon Tan Yung for his presentation of WOKO, an all in one educational Event Management app.  The outstanding idea and overall presentation, however belonged to Arvin Rahman, who wowed the judges with his social running app, Run Along. 

Overall the competition afforded students the opportunity to not only exercise their creative juices but also gain valuable feedback as to how to pitch an idea effectively within strict parameters.  Much appreciation is given to all those who attended, especially the judges, as well as to the organizing committee, led by Vinothini Kasinathan for organising the competition.   

We are pleased to share that APU recently hosted the Enterprise Resource Management (ERM) Challenge 2016 – Malaysian Finals on September 17th, 2016 for the Northern and Central Region of Malaysia. The ERM Challenge was based on the SAP Endorsed Monsoon Sim ERP gamification modules, with objectives of equipping students with the necessary skills in using SAP as part of their tools to perform ERM. 12 teams from APU and other private & public universities in Malaysia participated in the challenge, and 3 of APU’s teams were ranked 3rd place, 4th place and 5th place respectively.

The challenge platform was provided by Monsoon Sim , who were represented by their President, Mr Abdy Taminshah and Singapore Director, Mr Alex Ong. Prof. Ron Edwards launched the challenge as inspired the crowd with his opening speech. The event was organised by the School of Accounting, Finance & Quantitative Studies, School of Computing and School of Foundation, represented by Ms Geetha A Rubasundram, Ms Vinothini Kasinathan and Ms  Abbhirami Sivarajan. Special appreciation to Mr Suresh Balasingam, Ms Lai Siew Fong, Ms Nalini Gebril, Mr Mohd Firdaus and to all staff who assisted to make this event a success. Hopefully with more events like this, we are able to ensure that our students are equipped with the necessary knowledge when it comes to industry practice, in which these knowledge are useful in their future career pathways.

Here’s another good news to share!

Team MD1337, comprising students from APU’s School of Computing & Technology (SCT), Ahmed Nabil Al-Eryani, Alexander Sukhamera and Marat Omaraliev, was announced as the champion of the F-Secure IT Security Competition Malaysia 2016. They were among the top ten semi-finalists who competed for the championship that was held at Bangsar South Nexus Mall on the 14th of April 2016. 

The competition was open to all full-time IT undergraduate students who are enrolled in Malaysian public and private universities. It was also a joint effort between F-Secure and the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) as part of their initiatives to transfer and empower high technology skills to the local labour force through education. As such, the competition had provided students with the platform to demonstrate their academic skills and express their interests in the IT security field.

This year’s championship revolved around the theme of “Protection against Advanced. Persistent. Threat (APT)”. Prior to their advancement into the grand finals that took place in the form of Jeopardy-style, the team excelled at the university-based qualifying test and the semi-finals, in which they were given IT security challenges in the forms of Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) and Multistage Challenge. Participating students were required to be equipped with a wide range of knowledge in the IT Security field, such as news and current events related to cyber threats, security and targeted attacks, malware, forensics, programming, encryption, debugging, and more.

The team put in a lot of effort in preparing themselves for the competition the guidance of Yusnita Bt Yusof, Yogeswaran A/L Nathan and Sulaiman bin Harun. By demonstrating outstanding technical skills and excellent teamwork throughout the competition, their hard work paid off as they walked away with a MacBook Pro each, a 1-year license for F-Secure SAFE product, as well as a free Student Pass to the 19th Association of Anti-Virus Asia Researchers (AVAR) International Conference 2016, the largest Asia Pacific conference on anti-malware. 

Good job and thumbs up to the team and their mentors for making APU proud! 

Here comes another good news to share!

Our Software Engineering student, Lai Woon Siew, from the School of Computing (SoC), received the Bronze Award, in Category 2: Science and Technology, for his mobile application, 'I-cHeart' – Pill Time: Pill reminder system at the 1st Innovative Practices in Education and Industry Exhibition 2016 (I-PEINX '16), that was held on Monday, 14th March in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor. 

The innovative development of "Pill Time"- a medicine reminder application that reminds users to take every dose of medicine on time, which integrates the schedule function that notifies patients on the order of consumption of each medicine. The application also provides a few features like the ability to record appointments with the doctor, to save the patient’s own personal symptoms’ profile and to locate the nearest hospital for emergencies.

Congratulations to Woon Siew for he outstanding achievement! Special thanks and good job to Ms Aida Zamnah binti Zainal Abidin and Miss Vinothini Kasinathan, who mentored and guided Woon Siew throughout the competition. 

Our students made it again!

Our students from the School of Computing & Technology (SCT),  Leong Min On, Chan Ying Ying, Wong Yun Hwa, Chung Wei Teng and Gavin Sung were announced as one of the top 10 finalists in the 2016 Hilti International Industrial Mobile Application Competition. Through this competition, students had a platform to demonstrate their creativity and innovation in designing and developing tailor-made mobile applications, which will be used to enhance the digital experience of Hilti employees and customers.

Prior to the competition, Hilti organised a Case Study Workshop on the 14th of November 2015, in which a general overview about the competition was provided. After attending the workshop which was coordinated by Jacob Sow and Zailan Arabee, lecturers of School of Computing & Technology (SCT), 3 teams of APU students were selected to take part in the semifinals that was conducted via video conferencing.  Min On, Ying Ying, Yun Hwa, Wei Teng and Gavin stood out among other semifinalists and were qualified for the International Finals, which was held at the Hilti Malaysia office on Wednesday, 24 February 2016.

Their participation in the International Finals was an eye-opening experience; as they competed with participants from universities worldwide, including from Germany and Australia. Apart from demonstrating their impressive presentation skills and teamwork, their innovative solution that includes big data analytics also impressed the international panel of judges. It was also an additional delight when Leong Min On, Final Year student, was offered a job as an IT Process Consultant, even before his final year results were confirmed!

Hilti Asia IT Services, based in Malaysia, has been in an active collaborations with APU over the last two years. To date, they have hired 8 of our IT graduates and 3 interns. They also offered 10 project titles for final year studies and dissertations. We look forward to more collaborations and achievements like this; to ensure that our students possess industry-competent skills. Congratulations to the team for their outstanding achievement, and good job to their mentor, Hema Latha Krishna Nair, for the dedication and effort in leading the team towards success!

We are pleased to share another achievement recorded by our students from Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation (APU) at the eGenting Programming Competition (EGPC) 2015! They successfully bagged one Distinction and one Merit Award, which were awarded at the prize presentation lunch on the 23rd of January 2016, at Hard Rock Café, Kuala Lumpur. 

A total of 14 students from APU participated in both competitions; 9 students participated in the Programming Competition and 5 of them participated in the Bug Hunt. Most of the students were trained by Ms. Mary Ting who took the effort to organize weekly workshops for the Bug Hunt and the Programming Competition.  A total of 155 participants from various local public and private colleges and universities who took part in the Programming Competition, 2 APU students, Cheong Gze Xie and Ali Asghar Hashemi stood out as the Distinction Award and the Merit Award recipients who bagged RM500 and RM200 cash respectively based on their performance at the handwritten competition, which was held on 14th of November 2015.

Congratulations and well done to all students and their mentors; let’s look forward for more achievements by our students in year 2016!