KUCHING – Students from the School of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) of Swinburne Sarawak won two prizes in the recent Innovate Malaysia Design Competition (IMDC) 2021.
The IMDC is the largest national design competition in Malaysia which is open to students studying engineering, ICT, science, and mathematics. Teams participating in the competition are involved in various technology tracks namely AWS, Intel, Keysight, Microsoft, SilTerra/CEDEC/Intel, and design challenges such as CREST, DHL Express, and Sarawak Energy.
A total of 215 teams from 27 universities nationwide participated in the competition. 36 teams were shortlisted as finalists to compete for multiple prizes offered by industry partners as well as engineering professional bodies. The finalists were graded based on innovation, specification or validation plan, practicality, complexity, and working design. Two teams supervised by Swinburne lecturers from the School of ICT won prizes worth RM3,500.
The first team consisting of Dennis Lim Chia Yin, Darrell Lai Vui Kiat and Gabriel Kong Qi Hao won the DHL Express Design Challenge award with their project titled ‘DHL AI-Driven Chatbot Assistant to Improve Customer and Employee Experience’. Supervised by Dr Brian Loh Chung Shiong and Dr Vong Wan Tze, the project aims to support DHL Express in maintaining quality customer service after working hours. To achieve this, an artificially intelligent (AI) chatbot was developed to provide accurate answers to questions regarding shipping regulations, prohibited items by country, and shipments status.
Differing from script-based chatbots, the AI-driven assistant leverages upon advanced natural language processing algorithms which enables the understanding of intent, to provide human-like interaction. An administrative web system was also created to allow DHL Express staff to monitor chatbot performance in terms of missed utterances, daily usage, and customer feedback. As a whole, the project combined AI and cloud technologies to provide a possible Industry 4.0 solution to serve customers efficiently.
Under the supervision of Dr Lee Sue Han and Dr Joel Than Chia Ming, another team comprising Thon Pun Liang and Paul Cornelius Bong won the consolation prize in the Intel track. This team proposed ‘The Development of Smart On-Road Surveillance System’ project that focuses on creating a mass public solution to prevent car thefts, and provide on-road real time surveillance using state-of-the-art deep learning architectures and imaging processing techniques. The project is a stepping stone to building a data-driven AI-based surveillance system that could open up the possibility of consistent and legitimate collection and analysis of citizen data on a large scale, and serve as a benchmark for crisis management systems today.
This project’s solution firstly detects a car plate from the image obtained from a dash camera, followed by recognition of the characters and numbers of the car plate. This information is then paired with longitude and latitude information and further transmitted to a cloud database for recording. This solution potentially allows authorities to determine the last known locations of stolen cars and cars that are linked to crime. Through this project, students were exposed to Python, Microsoft Azure, Intel’s Up Squared board and deep learning libraries.
Swinburne August 2021 intake is now open for enrolment into its foundation, diploma, degree, and master programmes. All classes are expected to commence on 30 August 2021. For more information, chat with Swinburne’s Education Counsellor via WhatsApp at 019-819 6353 or email to study@swinburne.edu.my. Online counselling on demand is also available from Monday to Sunday, 10am to 10pm daily.
For more information about Swinburne Sarawak, visit its website www.swinburne.edu.my, Facebook page (@swinburnesarawak), Instagram (@swinburnesarawak), Twitter page (@Swinburne_Swk) or YouTube channel (Swinburne Sarawak).