72 teams in Young Innovators Challenge
KUCHING: A total of 72 teams from 22 secondary schools will compete in the Young Innovators Challenge Sarawak on July 7.
To be hosted by Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus, the challenge will see the top four teams qualify to submit a pitching video for the National Accelerator Camp in Kuala Lumpur.
A press release yesterday said 15 teams from throughout Malaysia will take part in the national finals on Sept 24- 30.
The annual innovation competition is open to secondary school students aged 13 to 17 from public, private, and international schools.
It aims to ignite the passion for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) among students in the areas of embedded systems; develop their skills in problem- solving, entrepreneurship and innovative thinking; expose them to opensource hardware and software applications; and ultimately drive them to become life-long learners.
The Young Innovators Challenge is divided into Prototyping, State- Level Maker Fairs and Competitions, and National Accelerator Camp.
At the Prototyping stage, participants attend boot camps to learn about Arduino and Design Thinking and come up with ideas to solve real-life problems in areas such as food and agriculture, automotive/mobility, healthcare, home and shelter, heavy equipment and machinery, or retail and customer service.
Participants then proceed to exhibit and pitch their projects at 13 host universities across Malaysia in the state-level Maker Fairs and Competitions.
The top 15 teams selected for the National Accelerator Camp will be mentored by a group of professionals, where the winning solution will be developed for market adoption.
Swinburne Sarawak strongly advocates STEM education in schools throughout Sarawak by working closely with various local and national stakeholders over the years.
Last year, 40 teams from 14 secondary schools took part in the Sarawak finals where they were mentored by trained Swinburne Sarawak’s undergraduate students to develop and showcase their prototype projects.
The competition is jointly organised by Yayasan Sime Darby and Chumbaka with Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation ( MDEC) as its strategic partner, and supported by the Ministry of Education.
Swinburne recently debuted in the Top 50 of the QS World University Rankings for the world’s top universities under the age of 50, ranking at 45 in the 2019 rankings.
Overall, Swinburne improved its position in 2017 and climbed 34 places to 387th to be ranked in the top 400 universities globally according to the QS World University Rankings 2018.
Earlier this year, its School of Design was recognised as one of the best in the world by the QS World University Rankings by Subject.
It is ranked at equal number 40 for Art and Design, improving by more than 10 places since last year.
Swinburne Sarawak will hold its open day on July 7 from 10am to 5pm.
Its July Foundation intake is now open for applications and classes will start on July 16.
For more information, visit www. swinburne.edu.my, email study@ swinburne.edu.my, or call 082- 415353.