Clinching the third prize in contest
iBM Malaysia, KBU International College’s industry partner, recently named two of the college’s students as third prize winners for the Mobilithon Malaysia 2013.
Mobilithon Malaysia is a mobile application contest that aspires to create awareness and build skills on IBM MobileFirst platform among Academic, IT Professionals and entrepreneur communities.
The contest aims to encourage creativity and innovation in the mobile space through skills development, enablement, sharing and learning within the ecosystem.
Other than that, through the competition, IBM also intends to consolidate some innovative mobile applications that could possibly add value to the industry and society.
KBU was represented by students Alan Hoo Wan Hong and Wilson Tham, who developed an application called “RideOn”, which intends to assist companies in arranging shuttle buses or vans for transport.
Creator Hoo said, “The idea to develop RideOn was inspired based on my own experience of having to wait long hours for buses. Through this app, passengers can schedule their travelling time according to bus arrivals; the apps will notify the passengers 15 minutes before the bus arrives.”
Hoo created this app together with his partner. He said the competition served as an eyeopener for him.
“When designing the apps, we only put emphasis on the technical issues. However, through this competition I learnt that we should add business sense into the apps that we are creating to make it more marketable,” he added.
Tham said: “It was a good experience to participate in the competition as we learnt how to use the IBM Worklight apps to develop apps and successfully completed the RideOn apps.”
The final year student of BEng (Hons) Electrical and Electronics Engineering also added that such contests are good as it gives the taste of the real world and what is expected of the students once they graduate.
Hoo and Tham were presented with RM1,000 during the prizegiving ceremony.
School of Engineering and Computing head Lye Boon Han said: “KBU always incorporates up-to-date technology and fun learning tactics to engage with its students. IBM Mobilithon is an example of how we train our students and keep them abreast with the constant changes which are surfacing in the tech world.”
He said the IBM-KBU relationship has immensely benefited the students where every year both the institutions have worked together in competition such as IBM Smartcloud Camp.
The IBM Mobilithon was launched in August this year. The contest drew 300 university students and faculty staff members across the country. Contestants were enlightened on the IBM Worklight, a cross-platform application development tools.
Contestants were taken through the seminars over a period of 10 sessions. After the sessions, 10 finalists were selected to pitch their apps, The training was supported by the Multimedia Development Corporation’s (MDeC) K-Workers Development unit.
KBU’s School of Engineering and Computing is a strong advocate of fun-learning activities and state-of-the-art equipment. Rather than focusing on theories and textbook learning, the school engages its students with more hands-on trainings and activities to prepare them for the competitive job market.
The school also engages with leading industry players to train and keep the students informed with the current trends and innovations. Its very own Innovation Day serves as a platform where students can rub shoulders with industry leaders to get hired instantly.
The college offers engineering and computing programmes ranging from BEng (Hons) Electrical and Electronic Engineering, BSc (Hons) Computer and Network Engineering, BSc (Hons) Software Engineering, BSc (Hons) Information and Communications Technology, and NCC Level 4 Diploma in Computing.
For more information, contact KBU International College, Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya, at 03-7727 3200, fax 03-7727 2733, e-mail enquiry@kbu.edu.my or log on to www.kbu.edu.my and facebook.com/kbuinternational