KUCHING – It will be the survival of the most innovative minds for 72 teams from 22 secondary schools in the southern region of Sarawak who will compete in the Young Innovators Challenge Sarawak this 7 July 2018.
The state-level competition will be hosted by Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus (Swinburne Sarawak) where the top four winning teams will qualify in submitting a pitching video for the National Accelerator Camp in Kuala Lumpur. Only 15 teams from throughout Malaysia will be eligible to take part in the national finals to be held from 24 to 30 September 2018.
The annual innovation competition is open to secondary school students between 13 and 17-year old from public, private and international schools in Malaysia. It aims to ignite the passion for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) among students in the areas of embedded systems; develop their skills in problem-solving, entrepreneurship and innovative thinking; expose them to open-source hardware and software applications; and ultimately drive them to become life-long learners.
The Young Innovators Challenge is divided into three stages namely Prototyping, State-Level Maker Fairs and Competitions, and National Accelerator Camp. At the Prototyping stage, the participants attend boot camps to learn about Arduino and Design Thinking and come up with ideas to solve real-life problems in areas such as food and agriculture, automotive/mobility, healthcare, home and shelter, heavy equipment and machinery, or retail and customer service.
The participants will then proceed to exhibit and pitch their projects at 13 host universities across Malaysia in the State-Level Maker Fairs and Competitions. The top 15 teams selected for the National Accelerator Camp will be mentored by a group of professionals where the winning solution will be developed for market adoption.
In line with the country’s vision to create a scientific and innovative society, Swinburne Sarawak strongly advocates STEM education in schools throughout the state by working closely with various local and national stakeholders over the years.
This year’s competition is the third to be hosted by Swinburne Sarawak. Last year, 40 teams from 14 secondary schools took part in the state finals where they were mentored by trained Swinburne Sarawak’s undergraduate students to develop and showcase their prototype projects.
The competition is jointly organised by Yayasan Sime Darby and Chumbaka with Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) as its strategic partner, and supported by the Ministry of Education Malaysia.
Swinburne Sarawak’s global rankings, high graduate employment rates and location in the city centre makes the university a top choice for students from around the world interested in obtaining an Australian degree at a fraction of the cost. The courses at the Sarawak campus are undifferentiated from the Melbourne campus and students who complete their degrees here receive the same testamur.
Swinburne recently debuted in the Top 50 of the QS World University Rankings for the world’s top universities under the age of 50, ranking at 45 in the 2019 rankings. Overall, Swinburne improved its position in 2017 and climbed 34 places to 387th to be ranked in the top 400 universities globally according to the QS World University Rankings 2018.
Earlier this year, its School of Design was recognised as one of the best in the world by the QS World University Rankings by Subject. It is ranked at equal number 40 for Art and Design, improving by more than ten places since 2017.
Swinburne Sarawak will be organising its Open Day on 7 July from 10am to 5pm at its Kuching campus. Its July Foundation intake is now open for applications and classes will commence on 16 July 2018. For more information, visit the university’s website (www.swinburne.edu.my), email to study@swinburne.edu.my or contact +6082 415 353.