By Neil Brian Joseph
Schools create winning apps to represent Sabah at National Code Challenge
KOTA KINABALU: The myriad of innovative talents possessed by Sabah was illustrated in the recent Coding@Schools 2017 Hackathon, an introductory programme for students to learn the basic and fundamental principles of coding in a practical way.
A total of 280 students from 13 lower secondary and seven primary schools from around the state were given the opportunity to learn how to build applications (or apps) using LiveCode.
SK Kolombong emerged as the winner of the primary school category, after it had created an app that makes it easy for consumers to buy items just by taking a picture of the item.
Meanwhile, SMK Sanzac and SMK Bandaraya won the secondary schools category.
SMK Sanzac had created an app that worked similar to Trivago, whereby it will show information about affordable gyms within one vicinity. That person may even proceed to sign up for his desired gym through that app.
SMK Bandaraya, on the other hand, had created an app that can help ease emergency calls, especially locations are hard to detect, among others.
All three schools will be presenting Sabah at the National Code Challenge (NCC).
The programme, which was conducted at the Federal Government Administration Complex from November 20-21, 21 was designed and coordinated by the National Strategy Unit, Ministry of Finance in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and the State Education Department.
Present at the event was Principal Assistant Director of the Finance Ministry, Ahmad Rizal Ramlan.
“There had been rumours that robots might take over our jobs in the future. For example, if you look at McDonalds, they had adopted the latest technology such as vending machines, up to a point where they do not even need people to actually work," Ahmad Rizal explained.
That is why, he said the government had opted to organize programmes such as the Coding@ Schools 2017 Hackathon, for it to be used as a platform to train the youngsters to be pioneers of the country's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) development.
Next year, the government might even start to introduce basic robotics-related programmes, an area that was even more advanced than basic coding, he said.
Describing coding in a nutshell, Ahmad Rizal said that coding is an IT (Information Technology) language. In other words, it is the process of assigning a code to something for classification or identification.
The students, who had participated in the programme, mainly focused on the basic areas of coding such as HTML, a skill that can be used to create applications.
"This skill can be used to help these students' parents ...during the programme, one of the teams had even created an application that can help his parents look for their car keys easily.
"We want these students to look for new ideas and design thinking," he said.
"The United States may have Facebook, but who knows, maybe one day a Sabahan can come up with his/her own ICT innovations. We want to be like India, a country that can create innovators.
"We even have our own version of Silicon Valley, which is Cyberjaya," he said.
Also present at the event was Sabah Federal deputy finance officer Siti Norhaini Osli.
"This programme is an initiative under the National Blue Ocean Strategy (NBOS), which resulted from partnership between the National Strategy Unit (under the Finance Ministry).
"For us, this programme is really beneficial and it was aimed at the younger generations, as early as nine-year-olds to those who are already in secondary school," Siti said.
Speaking to reporters after at officiating the closing ceremony of the two-day event, Siti asserted that the programme was catered for both the urban and rural youngsters of the state.
The programme also aimed to create IT-savvy society and to enable them to enjoy all the vast benefits that IT could offer, she added.
She revealed that the government would continue to offer more opportunities such as the Coding@ Schools Hackothon for the youngsters of the state, especially those living in rural areas.
A total of six Hackathons targeting 1,500 students have been planned under the Coding@Schools 2017 programme.
The Sabah Hackathon was the fifth instalment of the programme this year, after Putrajaya, Besut, Nibong Tebal and Jasin.