| Aziz Idris |
THE three-day ASEAN Cyberkids Camp (ACC) 2018 ended on a high note with an awards ceremony for the best project in the Computer Creativity Competition followed by a dinner reception held at the Rizqun International Hotel on Thursday night.
Cyberkids from Vietnam emerged as the Gold Award recipient with their project ‘Vietnam’s Smart City’ followed by Indonesia as the Silver Award recipient with their project ‘Security System’. Participants from other ASEAN member states were presented with the Bronze Awards.
Guest of honour Deputy Minister of Energy, Manpower and Industry Dato Seri Paduka Awang Haji Matsatejo bin Sokiaw handed over the prizes to the winners. He is also the Chairman of the Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry of Brunei Darussalam (AITI).
Prior to the award presentation, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Communications Haji Azhar bin Haji Ahmad highlighted that early introduction of ICT to young students can bring wealth through innovation in science and technology.
Haji Azhar, who is also the ASEAN Telecommunications and Information Technology Senior Officials Meeting (TELSOM) Leader for Brunei Darussalam further encouraged educators and tutors to build platforms for young students to create innovative products so that they can become technopreneurs who plays a major role in the economic growth in future.
The guest of honour also toured Computer Creativity Competition projects. In this competition, students worked on a creative multimedia programming project using the Scratch software.
This year’s topic revolves around the theme ‘Smart City’ whereby it challenged students’ abilities on designing and programming.
ACC 2018 was open to students aged 12 and below from 10 ASEAN member countries.
The three-day event consisted of programme introduction, ice breaking activities, creativity competition, and excursion programme.
Brunei Darussalam was represented by Binturan Primary School, Tutong.
The programme hoped to enhance the students’ skills in adaptability, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, working in a team, ability to use ICT creatively as well as encourage awareness of cross-cultural issues based on the adoption of the 21st Century learning objectives.
As part of Brunei’s effort in preparing the young students to be part of a rapidly growing digital ecosystem, AITI has also developed a programme called TechKid Camp.
The programme so far has hosted about 100 primary level students biannually since 2016. AITI is committed to continue such activities with the support of the Ministry of Education (MoE) and explore opportunity of expansion of its programme.
The collaboration with MoE is hoped to be held on a regular basis as part of an activity in the primary education of Brunei Darussalam.