KUCHING: Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Sarawak outshone 25 other competitors to emerge the overall champions at the recent SMA-AI Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) 2021 competition.
The team walked away with RM2,000 while Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation (SDEC) and Miri City Council (MCC) finished second, sharing the RM1,500 prize. Politeknik Kuching was third, bagging RM1,000.
MCC, Institute of Teacher Education Tun Abdul Razak Campus in Kota Samarahan and SDEC won RM500 each in the Creative, Innovative, Design and Digital Inclusivity categories respectively. Certificates of participation were also given.
The competition was jointly organised by the Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) and Serba Dinamik.
The competition was held in conjunction with the Sarawak Civil Servant Innovation Month from Sept 14 to Oct 14. Twenty-six government agencies took part.
Officiating at the virtual certificate and prize presentation ceremony, Deputy State Secretary (Performance and Service Delivery) Datuk Sabariah Putit said the competition was held to introduce IVA as a service transformation in eGovernment.
“IVA has great abilities towards improving the efficiency of the civil services’ support system for the people and stakeholders concerned.
“Through this programme, preparations and exposures have been given to the government agencies for the introduction of IVA in the government’s digital services to improve the response time for each government agency’s services.
“It will also improve the efficiency of government agencies by making IVA as a support system as well as the usage of Big Data,” she said on Wednesday (Oct 13).
On a related development, Sabariah expressed hope that through the State Services Modernisation Unit (SSMU), all 176 ministries and government agencies in Sarawak would benefit from innovation and new technology.
“This is crucial in efforts to drive excellent customer services, especially in this challenging post Covid-19 period.”
Accompanying Sabariah were SMA general manager Dr Zaidi Razak, Sarawak Digital Economy chief advisor and deputy chief scientist Professor Dr Ts. Al-Khalid Othman and Serba Dinamik general manager Abdul Qaiyum Alidin.
