computing

• Loo Chee Hin (Team Leader) - Bachelor of Computer Science (Hons) (Intelligent Systems)
• Yeo Khang Hsein - Bachelor of Computer Science (Hons) (Intelligent Systems)
• Andrew Chung Hui Yue - Bachelor of Computer Science (Hons) (Intelligent Systems)
• Yong Ee Ren - BSc (Hons) in Information Technology with a specialism in Cloud Computing

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.   

Under the guidance of Dr. Kalai Anand Ratnam from Faculty of Computing, Engineering & Technology (FCET) and Mr. Hari from APIIT Corporate Training, a total of 80 students from the APU Schools of Computing & Technology participated in an engagement session with Microsoft Malaysia recently, on the 22nd of February 2017. We are pleased to share that this visit has given them an insight of the working culture within the tech giant company, which was located at the Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC). 
 
Despite being amazed by the view and the well-decorated offices of Microsoft Malaysia during the office tour conducted by a staff from Microsoft, students were also given a short workshop on building their first “cross-platform” application. Upon completion, the students also walked away with some goodies from Microsoft, together with photos that documented their memories of visiting the Malaysian office of one of the world’s largest IT corporation.

 
 
The 1-day visit aspired many of our students to undertake their career path in software development. What’s more? Some of them even set a goal for themselves, as they wish to be a member of Microsoft in the future! 

To develop an application over 24 hours was not easy, but our students made it through, and excelled!

Adel Maratova, our student of the Software Engineering programme, bagged the first prize of the 24-hour IoT Hackathon, that was organised by MDEC, Cyberview and The Things Network from Amsterdam. In addition, Tumenbayeva Dara, Uzair Mustafa and Junon Lee from the Faculty of Computing, Engineering & Technology (FCET) were crowned the Best Student Team, as they also walked away with a special robotics kit.

The competition was an initiative by MDEC to encourage future IT professionals to develop usable Internet of Things (IoT) solutions based on LoRa technology. The students who were mentored by Seyed Amir Hossein Mousavi had excelled and had once again proven that APU students are capable of tackling the world’s current issues by using the latest technological tools.

We are absolutely proud of the students’ achievements! Congratulations and good job well done!

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! 

14 Multimedia and Internet Technology students together with 2 lecturers from the School of Computing participated in an industrial visit to the Bank Negara Museum & Art Gallery and Knowledge Management Center on Wednesday 16th  March, 2016.  This visit was arranged by Mrs Gaayaatri Nambiyaar and Mr. Leo Gertrude David. 

The visit was an introduction to actual applications of multimedia technologies at the museum, which allowed the students to understand the need for Information Technology in the banking industry.  The highlight of the visit was when students were able to question the usage technologies applied and the needs for the museum to further enhance the current system of demonstrating visual arts to the tourists.

Students were given the task to select an area of interest within the museum and prepare a proposal for improving the current technologies applied at the museum, as part of their learning process. They learnt to analyse and provide constructive feedback, in which their ideas were listened by Ms Juliana Abdul Rahman, the Curator from Bank Negara Museum. This was a great learning experience for all students who participated, in which they know what it takes while facing challenges from the current IT and Multimedia industry.

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. 

13 Multimedia and Computer Games students together with 5 lecturers from School of Computing & Technology participated in an industrial visit cum demonstration to Integrasi Erat Sdn Bhd Petaling Jaya on Tuesday, 1st March 2016. This visit was arranged by Mr. Naresh Kumar Appadurai, Mr Kamalanathan Shanmugam and Mr. Mohd Najib Bin Ismail from the School of Computing & Technology, FCET, APU.

During the visit, representatives from the company introduced their Virtalis software range and solutions to staff and students in actual applications and case studies, which allowed them to have a better understanding of the concept of 3D virtualization in various sectors from business to education. Virtalis is a world-leading Virtual Reality (VR) and advanced visualization solutions provider.

A wide range of software were showcased; such as the ActiveMove, a transportable VR system that is part of the ActiveWorks suite, which allowed visualization in stereoscopic 3D with full immersion and interaction through Virtalis’ integrated head and hand tracking solution. Another solution showcased was the GeoVisionary, which was developed by Virtalis in collaboration with the British Geological Survey as a specialist software for high-resolution visualization of spatial data.  Furthermore there was the Visionary Render, a software that allows users to access and experience a real-time, interactive and immersive Virtual Reality (VR) environment created from huge 3D datasets.

The highlight of the visit was when the students had the opportunity to experience firsthand immersive 3D virtualization on various applications created using the Virtalis software by using special visors with sensors. It was indeed a useful and interesting demonstration, which exposed students to various application and areas of 3D virtualization. We look forward to more out-of-classroom learning experiences for our students in the future! 

Staff attended: Muhammad Ehsan Rana, Naresh Kumar Appadurai, Kamalanathan Shanmugam, Zierasmayu Bte Abd Rahman, Md Baharul Islam
Students attended: Ahmed Nabeeh Abdul Sattar, Sheikh Ahmed Sheikh Al-Kaf, Sharma A/L Rajasekaran, Nicholas Inggih, Kenny Kwee King, Lew Tin Wah, Bestly Edyson, Mohammed Saleh Mohammed Alzawbari, Lai Jia Lok, Muhammad Zohaib Malik, Pidial Yvan Hans, Nida Shaugi Seff

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!