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His Royal Highness Prince Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah in a group photo with the government officials, BICTA organisers and winners held at The Empire Hotel & Country Club. Click image to enlarge.

His Royal Highness Prince Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah ibni His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, The Crown Prince and Senior Minister at The Prime Minister’s Office has consented to grace the award ceremony.

The Brunei Info-Communication Technology Awards (BICTA) is an annual event organised by the Ministry of Communications to stimulate innovation and creativity in ICT industry amongst individuals, students and entrepreneurs, including SMEs. It was first introduced in 2004.

BICTA aims to become the software development benchmark for local companies to compete amongst themselves and eventually enable them to reach an international standard and to represent Brunei Darussalam in Asia Pacific Info-Communication Technology (ICT) Alliance (APICTA) Awards competition.

The Brunei ICT Awards (BICTA) is also a component of Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards, whose vision is to widen the influence of ICT Industry in the Asia region. The winners of BICTA representing Brunei Darussalam are competing with other participants from Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam in the Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) competition each year. The BICTA has three main categories namely Secondary Student Project, Tertiary Student Project and ICT Industry.

Laksamana College of Business wins Merit Award under Tertiary Student Project for Barcode Attendance System

Maktab Teknik Sultan Saiful Rijal wins Merit Award under Tertiary Student Project for ourbrunei.com

Emettra Applied Technology for its Emettra Takaful Management System wins Startup category

Daitasolutions wins New Media and Entertainment Award for its mobile android app – Paranormal Tracks

Mediahikmah Enterprise win e-Learning for its Mari Sembahyang software

There are also four special awards to recognize their specific development and contribution towards Made in Brunei product, Green ICT, Islamic ICT and New Media & Entertainment.

This year’s BICTA include the prestigious ROYAL PATRON AWARD which is presented only to the “Best of the Best” product amongst all the categories. The Royal Patron Award winner will be the best amongst the first place winners in all categories.

The Crown Prince consented to present certificates to the BICTA judges who are experienced representatives from Ministry of Communications, AITI, EGNC, IFB, UBD, UNISSA, ITB, iCenter and TelBru.

The Crown Prince also presented the prizes of the winners and awardees of the BICTA Competition.

The list of winners for this year’s BICTA 2012

Chung Hwa Middle School showcasing their product – Brunei Treasure

Zimac Silicon Technologies (B) Sdn Bhd showcasing their product – Intelligent Clearance Identification – which is currently used at Brunei borders

HRH the Crown Prince with PHMD Publishing Company who created the Road Safety interactive e-book

John Harith Technology Sdn Bhd showcasing its Halal Food Traceability

Bru-InnovEdu Services wins Merit Award for its software – Learn thru Play

From Leo Kassim of The Brunei Times – Although the Brunei Info-Communication Technology Awards (BICTA) 2012 has seen less entries compared to the previous year, what has lacked in quantity was made up by quality, said BICTA Chief Judge, yesterday.

In his report at the Empire Hotel and Country Club yesterday, Dr Yong Chee Tuan pointed out on the slight decrease in the number of entries from 22 submissions for 2012, which is less than the previous years’ record number of 29.

“However, such decrease in quantity is pleasantly offset by the steep rise in quality and diversity of the products presented in BICTA 2012,” he said of the innovations which include web applications and cloud storage to name a few.

In order to assess an innovative pool of ICT products, he said that 13 judges were selected from the different backgrounds of academic, government agencies, telcos, regulators and private sector organisations.

He said that the judging process for BICTA is identical to the processes used in the Asia Pacific ICT Award (APICTA), a process which is always revised for improvement.

“The overall assessment is centred on five main criterias. These are uniqueness, proof of concept, feature, application of technology and presentation.”

According to Dr Yong, conventional ICT products are based on the perspective of “manufacturing innovation”, which means that the products are designed for customers with specific requirements. However, for design of innovative ICT products, there is usually no boundary or definition that targets customers and their specific requirements, he said. For more of the article, please click here.

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