Innovate Malaysia Design Competition 2018 has concluded the exciting journey of the largest engineering design competition in the country with a grand finale on 9 July 2018, which showcased innovative projects by 59 teams of bright talents nationwide.
The eighth series of the Innovate Malaysia Design Competition (IMDC), which aimed to inculcate the culture of innovation among final year engineering, computer science, and IT undergraduates in Malaysia, was organised by industry leaders – Google, Intel, Keysight, MathWorks, Microsoft, SAS, Silterra and Solidworks – and managed by Dream Catcher Consulting Sdn Bhd.
The competition, which saw the participation of 814 students this year, received support from the Ministry of Education (MOE), Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC), and the Institute of Engineers Malaysia (IEM).
The Innovate Malaysia Design Competition 2018 Finale was graced by Dr Maszlee Malik, the Malaysian Education Minister. In his speech, he said, “This competition helps to develop holistic, entrepreneurial and balanced graduates. It provides the opportunity for the undergraduates to be empowered with more knowledge and skills beyond the comprehensive training they already
Received from the Institutions of Higher Learning. By the time they leave their universities and colleges, our graduates are therefore more equipped and better prepared for career opportunities as well as entrepreneurial endeavours of the future.”
Ashran Dato’ Ghazi, Chief Executive Officer of the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Center (MaGIC) took to the stage as the venue host, said in his speech that “The competition is seen as a dynamic platform that connects leading technology providers to the Institutions of Higher Learning. The program contributed towards catalysing and molding future entrepreneurs. The industry leaders play a vital role in attracting talents to venture into solving real world problems. MaGIC is looking towards funnelling qualified talents to our programs such as the Pre-Accelerator Bootcamp, a 2-week pre-accelerator designed to kickstart businesses of aspiring entrepreneurs. This program will assist them to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) from validated ideas. We are honoured to host the IMDC Grand Finale this year and look forward to the entrepreneurial journey of the talents from this innovative program.”
This year, Intel Malaysia was appointed as the industry host for the IMDC grand finale. Lynn Olson, Vice President and Director of Programmable Solutions Engineering Penang, shared, “Spurred by fundamentals of IoT and Big data in the past few years, the industry is already shifting the focus to next technological breakthroughs. Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence are reaching maturity and have proven uses in smart city applications as well as revolutionizing
applications in Industry 4.0. Fully autonomous vehicles, available to the general public as early as year 2021, is redefining city transportation planning as well as individual concept of cost associated to vehicle ownership. These are some of the technologies where we need students in universities to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to ride the wave of the new technologies.”
As part of this season’s challenge, the participants were invited to compete across the eight organisers’ technology track, where they tackle real-world problems with practical engineering solutions through the submission of a proposal paper in the initial stage of the competition.
Over RM100,000 in cash and prizes were awarded to the finalists of all tracks. However, it is the Google track champion from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), comprising of Electronics and Electrical Majors Lim Ji Chen (24), Chinn Linn Kern (24) and Matthias Tiong Foh Thye (24), supervised by Assoc Prof Dr Ramesh K. S. and Dr. Sharizal Bin Rusli who ultimately won the Innovate Malaysia Excellence Award.
The winning project is titled Intelligent CCTV for Workplace Safety and Security Using Tensorflow Deep Learning Application that provides construction site managements in the aspects of safety and security.
