KUCHING: A total of 15 Sarawak teams have been shortlisted for the final round in the National-level Junior Innovate (JI) Competition 2020.
The organiser of the competition, Chumbaka Sdn Bhd stated that the theme of this year’s competition was “A Game for Change — A Clean and Happy Earth” where students were tasked to design a game to promote positive change for nature with the use of open-source coding and microcontroller.
“Since 2018, Chumbaka has taken the initiative to organise this annual flagship event. We believe in this competition as a platform for all primary school students to showcase their creativity using open-source programming and hardware.
“However, the year 2020 was particularly challenging but I was so impressed by the students’ effort and their awareness for our Mother Earth through the games that they have created,” said Chumbaka Sdn Bhd principal consultant Dr Chew Yen Seng.
Originally, 1,130 students and more than 500 teachers from 274 primary schools participated in the said competition. After going through the preliminary and semi-final rounds, only the top 30 teams managed to go through.
“The 15 Sarawak teams that made the cut are from SJK (C) Chung Hua Miri (Miri); SK St Francis Xavier (M) (Kanowit); SJK (C) Yee Ting (Kanowit); SJK (C) Thai Kwang (Sibu); SJK (C) Sacred Heart (Sibu); SJK (C) Hock Lam (Kapit); SJK (C) Chung Hua No. 3 (Kuching); SJK (C) Chung Hua No. 4 (Kuching); SJK (C) Chung Hua No. 5 (Kuching); SK Trusan (Lawas); SJK (C) Sungai Jaong (Marudi); and SJK (C) Chung Hua Sambir (Samarahan).
“These finalists would be pitching their work live to the judges on the video conferencing tool ZOOM at 10am on Sunday (Jan 31),” stated in the press statement.
The entire competition would be streamed to the public real time to the public on FacebookLive (https://www.facebook.com/chumbaka.asia/).
The national hosts for this year’s JI competition are Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA), Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation (SDEC) and Tabung Ekonomi Gagasan Anak Sarawak (Tegas).
The closing ceremony of the said competition would be officiated by Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Mah Hang Soon, Royal Academy of Engineering UK Fellow Tan Sri Kunasingham Sittampalam and Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hazwan Razak.
