Trio does Taylor’s proud

(From left) Jon Ng, Aaron Siow and Kenneth Ong are all smiles with their mock cheque and trophy

In a high-leveled competition that attracted the innovative minds of Malaysia’s new generation, Taylorians emerged victorious in the prestigious MSC Malaysia-IHL Business Plan Competition 2010/2011.

The team called 3rd Eye comprised of degree students Kenneth Ong Wui Kheun, Aaron Siow and Jon Ng Jie Kai from Taylor’s School of Computing and IT (SOCIT) walked away with RM 7,000 cash, a trophy and a certificate.

SOCIT lecturer and team mentor Sanath Sukumaran was elated with his students’ outstanding achievement in the competition.

“It’s an unprecedented win for Taylor’s. This is definitely a testimony to our students’ ability as they applied what we taught them in their idea,” he said.

Competing in the Business Idea category, the team came up with a brilliant project entitled Guide Me! - a device to assist the visually impaired in moving around and estimating distance.

The team also received a fully sponsored scholarship, courtesy of Yayasan Inovasi Malaysia, to represent Malaysia at the ASEAN Youth Forum on Innovation and Creativity (AYFIC 2011).

The three-day forum is scheduled to be held from April 18-20 at the Federal Territory of Labuan.

One of the winners, Ng said that it was not an easy feat for them considering the field of competition.

“There were many strong teams. We were expecting to be in the top three but it certainly surprised us when we were crowned champions,” he added.

Ng also said that they managed to beat a total of 383 business ideas submitted by both public and private universities.

Meanwhile Ong stated that it wasn’t easy to come up with the winning idea initially.

“We faced a lot of disagreements with the business idea. Fortunately, we managed to solve every single problem in detail,” he mentioned.

Representing Malaysia, their winning project is now in the running for the Asia Pacific ICT Award (APICTA 2011) which will be held later this year.

Minister of Higher Education Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin presented the prizes to the winners during an award ceremony held at KL Hilton.

(By Marie Erin Pereira)