By EDD K. USMAN, SDN, Twitter @edd1819, Instagram @bluestar0910, Facebook: SDN — Science, Digital & Current Affairs
THE Ateneo de Manila University’s (AdMU) Team Sustainablue is going to Bangkok, Thailand, after taking the Philippines edition of the ASEAN Data Science Explorers (ADSE) 2019 National Finals.
Not to mention prestige and honor, the win also gave AdMU a US$800 cash prize.
ASEAN stands for Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The economic bloc comprises of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
ASEAN’s nine other members are also holding their respective national finals, the winners of which will represent their respective country to the Regional Finals in Bangkok in October 2019.
A global of the competition is being considered as well.
The ASEAN Foundation and SAP SE have partnered for the competition. This year’s edition marked the third time of the competition for the Philippines.
Hosted by the Technology Institute of the Philippines (TIP) — Quezon City Campus, De La Salle University — Manila’s (DLSU–Manila) Team Isdabest garnered the second place, and $400 cash.
ADSE 2019. And the winners are… (Photo: ASEAN Foundation/SAP SE)
TIP-Quezon City’s Team Celestial-EX placed third with $200 prize. Partners in organizing the event are ASEAN Foundation and SAP SE.
The judges chose the three winners for showing the urgency and relevance of their topics, the solutions delivered as shown by their storyboards, not to mention their presentations’ clarity.
For this year’s competition, around 624 students from across the country took training on the SAP Analytics Cloud in preparation for the event. This was pared down to 243 registered teams, then came down to only 10 groups after an elimination round.
In order of presentation during the national championship, the finalists were Team Nodes (Malayan Colleges Laguna); Team Encryptonite (Malayan Colleges Laguna); Team Sustainablue (AdeMU); Team CS (TIP); Team Rolex (Mapua Institute of Technology); Team PrintX (TIP-Quezon City); Team Celestial-EX (TIP-Quezon City); Team Pentapower Tenable (Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology); Team Pertualite Data Explorers (University of Perpetual Help System, Calamba, Laguna); and Team Isdabest (DLSU-Manila).
Composed of Krystel Iris de Castro and Anne Nicole Dolfo, Team Sustainablue’s winning project focused on job automation and displacement and their recommended solutions with talent as premium in thriving in the digital world in preparation for Industry 4.0, improving education systems, providing mid-career training for successful job transition, and rebuilding an integrated ASEAN labor market.
DLSU-Manila’s Team Isdabest bannered by Patricia Nicole Joyce Cruz and Dominique Hannah Sy, took 1st runner-up with their project that champions and promotes gender equality in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) industry.
They beefed up their presentation with much data as well as providing solutions aimed at helping women as they enter the STEM professions.
Meanwhile, TIP-Quezon City’s Team Celestial-EX made up of Daniel Soriano and Joshua Bacani entered a project that focuses on the management of carbon emission.
They emphasized the vital need to alleviate each ASEAN member countries’ carbon footprint to create more sustainable cities and communities through the use of solar panels, not the traditional power plants that spew smoke and add to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The TIP-Quezon City duo also advocated replacing mechanical vehicles with electricity-powered cars as well as citing the importance of reforestation and the use of CO2 filters and air purifiers.
For the teams’ projects they tapped the powers of SAP’s Analytic Cloud software to develop data-driven solutions revolving around six Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as pushed by the United Nations, such as:
- (1) good health and well-being;
- (2) quality education;
- (3) gender equality;
- (4) decent work and economic growth;
- (5) industry, innovation & infrastructure; and,
- (6) sustainable cities and communities and can contribute to solve the region’s most pressing social issues.
The participants’ training on the SAP Analytics Cloud afforded them the opportunity to analyze real-time data of the current social and economic crises among ASEAN members and then provide a solution for the SDG they have chosen.
Edler Panlilio, SAP Philippines managing director, recalled last year’s ADSE champion from the Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology (NEUST), Jade Hizon and John Rusty Perena, the Team Dimicrocambio.
He said the NEUST students focused on a project that creates better opportunities through entrepreneurial education.
Hizon and Perena went on to bagged second place in the 2018 Regional Finals.
“Together with the ASEAN Foundation, we at SAP continue to encourage youths to be creative and develop innovations to support the social and economic issues that our country and others in the region face, especially with providing them with skills that help them to face the experience economy and contribute to the Philippines’ goals for Industry 4.0,” said Panlilio.
“This passionate spirit from our Filipino youth is one of the keys to sustainable growth for the Philippines, as our youth helps the country, and in turn the world to run better and improve people’s lives.”
Elaine Tan, executive director of ASEAN Foundation, welcomed the foundation’s partnership with SAP.
“ASEAN Foundation is honored and proud to partner up with SAP for three consecutive years. The role of SAP is strongly significant in this joint initiative as together we are addressing the post-2020 direction of ASEAN youth development that focuses on fostering future-ready ASEAN youth through digital skills development.
“The initiative capacitates ASEAN youth to seize the vast opportunities that lie ahead of them. At the same time, the initiative equips them with relevant digital skills they require to tackle the challenges posed by the Industrial Revolution 4.0,” Tan said. (SDN)