| Syazwani Hj Rosli |
THE Ministry of Communications (MinCom) in collaboration with the Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry of Brunei Darussalam (AITI) and InfoCom Federation Brunei (IFB) yesterday held a prize presentation ceremony for winners of the Brunei ICT Awards (BICTA) 2017 at the ministry’s Amar Pahlawan Hall.
The guest of honour was the Minister of Communications, Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Mustappa bin Haji Sirat.
Also in attendance were the Permanent Secretary at the MinCom and Chairman of BICTA 2017, Haji Azhar bin Haji Ahmad; Acting Deputy Permanent Secretary at the MinCom, Dr Haji Supry bin Haji Awang Ladi; and invited guests from the higher educational institutions, local ICT industry and start-up.
Haji Azhar highlighted that the BICTA Award serves as a platform for identifying and recognising the achievements of ICT talents among individuals, students and local entrepreneurs and at the same time identifying the best local ICT innovations.
He emphasised that BICTA 2017 stresses on the importance of visionary generation that is always aware of the latest technological development and is constantly working towards producing innovative solutions.
“We often face various challenges such as issues related to energy, environment, public health and others. A generation with creativity is essential in addressing these challenges especially in ensuring ICT development for the community,” he added.
According to him, BICTA 2017 aims to promote and expose local products and services at the Asean and Asia-Pacific level.
This year, the competition was divided into three categories such as the Tertiary Category, Start-Up Category and ICT Industry Category.
In addition, there were also special awards including the Promising Entrepreneur Award, Green ICT Award, Emerging Technology Award and Creative Industry Award.
He added that the winners of the awards will be presented ‘grants’ for their inventions that showcase the development of ICT industry and hoped that it will encourage to come out with more innovations.
“It is hoped that the BICTA winners will gain the opportunity to expand the ‘Made-in-Brunei’ products and later penetrate markets in the Asia-Pacific region through programmes in the form of business networking or technology exchange,” he said.
The event witnessed the prize presentation for the BICTA winners by the guest of honour.
For the Tertiary Category, the first place went to Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) with ‘Smart LED Street Light System using Sensor and Wireless Network’.
Meanwhile, two groups of participants from UTB with ‘Brunei Forest Fire Prevention System (BFFP)’ and ‘Mobile Incident Reporting and Web-based GIS for Disaster Management’ came in second and third places.
Pengiran Khairi bin Pengiran Metussin was also announced as the champion for the Start-Up Category with his product ‘Islamic Mind’.
Second place went to Yamin Hamid and Simon Soo Say with their product ‘Track and Roll’, whereas ZeneCo Solutions came in third with ‘Agrome iQ Agriculture Business Intelligence Platform’.
The ICT Industry Category saw Naindah Enterprise winning the first place with ‘Naindah.com’ and NewGate Plus with ‘First Blood’ and Sphere Sdn Bhd’s ‘Lock & Go’ coming in second and third places.
For the special award, the Department of Electrical Services received the Green ICT Award with its ‘D-QMS System’, while Awangku Abdul Azim bin Pengiran Yusof was awarded the Promising Entrepreneur Award with ‘TeachMeGuru’ and UTB received the Emerging Technology Award with their ‘Virtual Reality Interactive Science (VRIS)’.
Dayangku Khadhijah, who won first place for Tertiary Category with ‘Smart LED Street Light System using Sensor and Wireless Network’, said the innovative approach of using LED lighting and sensors can tackle the high energy usage and unsafe environment of the current street light system in Brunei.
Asked about her preparation, she said it took her almost a year to create the system with help and support from her lecturers, families and friends and it was part of her course’s year-end project.
She hoped that the system will be further developed in the future so that it can be implemented in Brunei to encourage eco-friendliness and safety of road users.
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