[The Star Online, 23rd April 2017] Exchange of knowledge

THE Information and Communications Technology Competition 2017 (ICTReC ’17) was held at Universiti Tenaga Nasional’s (Uniten) College of Computer Science & Information Technology (CSIT).

With this year’s tagline, “From ideas to innovation”, the event was organised by CSIT and supported by the Innovation and Research Management Centre (iRMC).

This year, a total of 40 participants including a few entries from Multimedia University took part in the competition.

“Innovation makes a company thrive on greatness.

“Innovation may not be required for all leadership situations, but a good leader should be able to provide a creative and appropriate solution to a work-related problem fast,” said Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) chief information officer Fazil Ibrahim in his speech at the opening.

“The utility industry, TNB included, are facing new challenges such as the development of renewable energy, energy inefficiency, electric vehicles and distributed generation.

“We need to transform our business and operation strategy so that we can turn these challenges into opportunities.

“It’s about envisioning different futures, understanding trends and uncertainties, considering the implications for underlying assumptions in the strategy and the business model,” he added.

ICTReC’17 chairman Prof Dr Manjit Singh Sidhu, in his opening speech, said: “Although ICT can be used to develop any software product, software developers should focus on software that are effective, useful and innovative.”

“An invention should help in solving problems and improve an organisation,” he added.

Prof Manjit won two gold awards and two special awards in the event.

He won gold and “The Best Industry” award” for his invention entitled “Touch-less Interaction: A Virtual Dance Communicator”.

As for his other invention entitled “Advanced Gear Analysis System (AGAS)”, he won gold and “The Very Best of the Best” award.

Ramona Ramli from Uniten won gold and “The Most Innovative” award for her invention entitled “Learning Iqra’ Using Voice Recognition Technology”.

ICTReC ‘2017 was organised to enable academics from science, research students, scholars, experts and application developers and systems technology users to exchange information and share knowledge, experiences and ideas during the competition.

A total of 43 awards were given during the prize giving ceremony at ICTReC’17. These included three Special Awards, nine Gold Awards, 13 Silver Awards, 11 Bronze Awards and five Merit Awards.

ICTREC was first introduced in 2010 and held for the second time in 2013.

In the previous two competitions, the participants were only from Uniten but this year, it was opened to selected universities in the region.

Also present were Uniten deputy vice-chancellor (Academic & Research) Prof Datuk Dr Ibrahim Hussein, deputy vice-chancellor (Student Affairs & Alumni) Prof Dr Zamri Yusoff and assistant vice-chancellor (Research) Prof Datin Dr Lariyah Sidek.

Note : This article is retrieved from the Star Online, 23rd April 2017, read more at http://www.thestar.com.my/news/education/2017/04/23/exchange-of-knowledge/#rlyeTiGqaiBLl8tL.99