Miri – 13 November 2012 – Curtin University, Sarawak Malaysia (Curtin Sarawak) is among six teams from Malaysian institutes of higher learning shortlisted to compete in the Malaysia finals of the SAP Dashboard Design Competition 2012 Southeast Asia in Kuala Lumpur on 20 November 2012.
Representing Curtin Sarawak is its ‘Foxtrot November Tango’ team comprising accounting and finance student Kevin Wong Jian Fai and accounting and entrepreneurship student Maxwell Bhosha.
Also in the finals are ‘Champs’ from KDU University College, ‘Ellune’ and ‘IT Newbie’ from INTI International University, ‘Galaxy’ from Tunku Abdul Rahman College and ‘Ravens’ from Asia Pacific University.
The SAP Dashboard Design Competition 2012 Southeast Asia is open to teams of undergraduate students in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, in which they design dashboards using the SAP Crystal Dashboard Design software to manage complex company data in an engaging and interactive way.
Themed ‘The Best of the Olympic Games’, this year’s competition requires each team to create an interactive dashboard to analyse the Olympic Games (Summer Games) results of 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012.
The participants are free to decide what variables are to be highlighted on their dashboards, such as country, region, sport or any other aspects of the games.
They will be judged based on criteria such as the usefulness, usability, data quality and documentation of their dashboards. Bonus points will be given for ‘wow factor’ in regards creativity and total user experience.
The winning team will walk away with USD800 cash prize while the first and second runner-ups will win USD600 and USD400 respectively. Furthermore, an overall South East Asia champion will be selected amongst the country champions.
According to Wong, the initial part of the competition was the most challenging part as he and Maxwell had no idea what a dashboard was.
“Both Maxwell and I were clueless about dashboard design. However, with the samples, online tutorials as well as assistance offered by our lecturers, we managed to complete the task successfully. This competition has surely provided an invaluable learning experience and will help us in our future careers,” said Wong.
The team was assisted by the dean of Curtin Sarawak’s School of Business, Professor Francois Therin; Head of Department of Accounting Dr. Anbalagan Krishnan; lecturer of accounting Anita Johari and associate lecturer of electrical and computer engineering Suresh Reuben.
Professor Therin hopes the team will be selected as one of the top three teams in the country and eventually the winner for Southeast Asia region.
The competition 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.
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.
