The Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) is bringing emerging technologies to the forefront at an unprecedented pace. With IR4.0 and Brunei's gearing towards the Smart Nation development, there will be a rich array of tech products and services, requiring different skill sets. We need to prepare our young people to be able to participate in the IR4.0 and Smart Nation of the future.
With this in mind, AITI recently embarked on Hackathon for Teens 2019, a capacity building initiative to introduce the students to the fundamentals of coding and computational thinking. With the support of STEP Centre, Ministry of Education, the program provides the students from Year 7 and 8, an avenue to build a mobile application prototype using the 'App inventor' platform. Their challenge was to create a mobile app which addresses the assigned theme of 'environmental issues'.
A total of 51 students and 16 teachers from 14 different government schools nationwide participated in the Hackathon for Teens which started on 18 March 2019 at the Tutong Sixth Form Centre. The event was facilitated by a local ICT company, GroMinda.
The Hackathon was running for 4 days where at the end of the session, the participants pitched their mobile app ideas to a panel of judges and the most promising teams were given a one-month mentorship to further develop and enhance their apps. Seven (7) schools successfully went through the mentorship program which ended with the delivery of their final presentations to representatives from the Ministry of Education, AITI, DARe and selected local ICT players. The top three (3) apps were selected to be uploaded on Google Playstore, which could actually be offered for use by members of the public.
The Prize Presentation Ceremony is held today to award the top three (3) mobile applications created by the participating schools. Present as the Guest of Honour to present the prizes to the winners and participants was Yang Berhormat, Siti Rozaimeriyanty binti Dato Seri Laila Jasa Haji Abdul Rahman, member of the Legislative Council as well as AITI Member of Authority.
Also in attendance were Yang Berhormat Khairunnisa binti Haji Ash'ari, member of the Legislative Council; Yang Mulia Pengiran Haji Mohd Zain bin Pengiran Haji Abdul Razak, Chief Executive of AITI, Directors from Ministry of Education, principals from participating schools, senior management from AITI as well as the participating schools' teachers and students.
The top three (3) mobile applications winning the award were as follows:
Winner: Ma'had Islam Brunei
App name: BruClean
BruClean is a transportation network app based in Brunei Darussalam that offers the fastest rubbish collecting services via land and water. This app allows users to take photo of their rubbish or any rubbish, submit the location so it can be collected by volunteers.
1st Runner-up: Pengiran Isteri Hajjah Mariam Secondary School, Serasa
App name: CleanBN
CleanBN is an app that helps create awareness for environmental events. This app allows the creation of events by event owners while volunteers can RSVP if they want to join upcoming events.
2nd Runner-up: Sultan Sharif Ali Secondary School
App name: SkyBru
SkyBru is an app that measures the quality of air. The app shows real-time live conditions of the user's location and scans the air quality within the area.
The event also saw presentation of awards to the Best Teacher and Special Mention. The Best Teacher Award went to Hj Muhd Zuwaini bin Hj Aliyani from Ma'had Islam Brunei while Special Mention Award recipients were:
- SOAS college for their app - Enviro Heros
- PDSM Mentiri Secondary School for their app - R:A:I:S
The remaining two schools namely, SUAMRIPAD (ARAB), Tutong and Masin Secondary School received certificates of participation.
The winner of the Hackathon for Teens 2019, were also given the opportunity to deliver a presentation on their mobile apps.
The event concluded with the Guest of Honour and invited guests touring the exhibition which showcased various applications created by the participants.
AITI hopes that the students who participated in Hackathon for Teens 2019 can share their experiences to get the other students interested to learn coding and computational thinking. It is further hoped that the coding activities will continue where the supervising teachers can impart their knowledge and teach mobile application by using the app inventor platform in their respective schools.
