UTB shines in BICTA 2016
HIS Royal Highness Prince Hj Al-Muhtadee Billah, the Deputy Sultan, yesterday presented awards to winners of the Brunei Info-Communication Technology Awards (BICTA) 2016 in a ceremony held at the International Convention Centre.
Chung Hwa Middle School, BSB received the most prestigious award of the event, the Royal Patron award, for its BHealth App, a mobile app that acts as a medical assistant for overseas travellers in identifying the nearest hospitals or clinics.
The school was also named champions of the School Project Category.
Universiti Teknologi Brunei’s (UTB) DFMS-Deployable Flood Management System won the Tertiary Project Category, while Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) researchers Nagender Aneja and Dr Sandhya Aneja won the ICT Industry Category with their OffAT-Chat or Offline Chat Messenger in Airplane Mode app.
Two recipients shared the Young Developer Award: Seri Mulia Sarjana International School for their Augmented Reality of Brunei Tourism game, and Chung Hua Middle School for its tSavior project.
The Promising Entrepreneurs Award went to Mohammad Effendy for his “Box-ITB” project and Paduka Seri Begawan Sultan Science College for its Student Transport Monitoring System.
UTB also received the Emerging Technology Award with its Twitter Sentiment Analytic project.
BICTA 2016 Chief Judge Dr Yong Chee Tuan said there was no entry that could be claimed as having a significant innovation related to green technology for the Special Award in Green ICT this year.
According to Dr Yong, there were 19 entries for the School Project Category, 20 for the Tertiary Project Category, and 13 for the ICT Industry Category.
“The judging system and methodology for BICTA are based entirely on the Judging Manual used in the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Award Competition which is held annually at the Asia-Pacific level.
He said the five main judging criteria are uniqueness, market potential, features, application of technology and presentation.
A panel of 17 judges was selected from government agencies, academia, ICT related organisations and professional bodies for BICTA 2016, which carried the theme ‘Empowering a Digital Nation’, he added.
First held in 2004, BICTA is an annual event organised by the Ministry of Communications to stimulate ICT industry innovation and creativity among individuals, students and entrepreneurs, including SMEs.
BICTA 2016 winners will go on to represent Brunei at the APICTA Awards 2016, which will be held in Taiwan this year.
Courtesy of The Brunei Times