Curtin Sarawak students Maxwell Bhosha and Kevin Wong Jian Fai (2nd and 3rd from left, back row) in a photo call with other winners and competition organisers.
Miri – 23 November 2012 – The ‘Foxtrot November Tango’ team from Curtin University, Sarawak Malaysia (Curtin Sarawak) came in second in the recent Malaysia finals of the SAP Dashboard Design Competition 2012 Southeast Asia held in Kuala Lumpur.
Comprising accounting and finance student Kevin Wong Jian Fai and accounting and entrepreneurship student Maxwell Bhosha, the team walked away with a cash prize of USD600.
The team was among six teams from Malaysian institutes of higher learning competing in the finals. The other teams were from KDU University College, INTI International University, Tunku Abdul Rahman College and Asia Pacific University.
It was Wong and Maxwell’s first attempt in such a competition which requires the teams to design dashboards using the SAP Crystal Dashboard Design software to manage complex company data in an engaging and interactive way.
The competition is open to teams of undergraduate students in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It is organised by SAP, a leading provider of business management software, solutions and services with offices in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific regions. Its Kuala Lumpur branch provides services and support to more than 500 clients in Malaysia.
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Curtin Sarawak team emerges first runner-up in national finals of dashboard design competition – page 2
“Considering it was their first competition and the fact they are up against very strong teams from the other institutions, Kelvin and Maxwell have done Curtin Sarawak proud by placing second,” said the dean of Curtin Sarawak’s School of Business, Professor Francois Therin.
Professor Therin added that he, along with Head of Department of Accounting Dr. Anbalagan Krishnan, lecturer of accounting Anita Johari and associate lecturer of electrical and computer engineering Suresh Reuben, who assisted the team in their preparation for the competition, were elated at their win and were proud of their entrepreneurial and creative thinking skills.
Themed ‘The Best of the Olympic Games’, this year’s competition required each team to create an interactive dashboard to analyse the Olympic Games (Summer Games) results of 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012. They were free to decide what variables are to be highlighted on their dashboards, such as country, region, sport or any other aspects of the games.
Judging was based on criteria such as the usefulness, usability, data quality and documentation of the teams’ dashboards. Bonus points were given for ‘wow factor’ in regards creativity and total user experience.
According to Wong, the competition was very challenging as both he and Maxwell had no experience designing dashboards. Nevertheless, they succeeded with the help of online tutorials and the assistance of their coaches and other academics of Curtin Sarawak.
For more information on Curtin Sarawak, visit its website at www.curtin.edu.my or e-mail to [email protected]. Curtin Sarawak can also be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CurtinUniversitySarawakMalaysia.
