Swinburne Sarawak team shines at Global Data Challenge
KUCHING: Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus has announced the remarkable achievements of its academics from the School of Information and Communication Technology, Dr Miko Chang May Lee and Dr Vong Wan Tze, in clinching victory at the Alan Turing Institute’s Global Data Challenge.
Organised by Dr Oman Guerrero, head of Computational Social Science under the institute’s Public Policy Programme, the challenge attracted participants from around the world.
Teams were tasked with tackling challenges using open spending data, development indicators and a newly released web-based modelling app from the ‘Policy Priority Inference’ research programme.
The Swinburne academics including a third team member representing the industry, Ryan Chua, emerged the grand champions out of the 25 finalist teams representing 20 countries.
Their victory followed a rigorous judging by panellists comprising industry and subject experts.
As global champions, Dr Chang and Dr Vong earned a fully sponsored trip to visit The Alan Turing Institute’s office in London. During their visit recently, they also participated in and presented their work at the AI UK 2024, UK’s annual national showcase on data science, and artificial intelligence (AI) research and innovation.
Head of Swinburne Sarawak’s School of Information and Communications Technologies, Prof Patrick Then Hang Hui, remarked: “There’s a real sense of triumph here at Swinburne Sarawak.
“Our academics have truly excelled in this global data challenge; it is a clear testament to their outstanding skills and unwavering dedication. This victory not only boosts Swinburne’s reputation but also establishes the university as a frontrunner in the realm of data science and advanced analytics.”
Dr Chang said: “It was an invaluable experience where I learned that to progress further, one must stand on the shoulders of giants, as beautifully put by Newton – in this instance, it is Turing.
“Discovering that the Turing Way is open source adds another layer of appreciation for the ethos of collaboration and shared knowledge within the AI research community.”
The Alan Turing Institute, headquartered in the British Library in London, was established as the national institute for data science in 2015.
In 2017, it added AI to its remit at the recommendation of the British government.
The institute was named after Alan Turing (1912-1954), whose work in theoretical and applied mathematics, engineering and computing are considered key disciplines in the field of data science and AI.
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