Article prepared and edited by Natasha Keasberry, Siti Nurul Atirah

The Brunei ICT Awards (BICTA) 2016 was recently held at the International Convention Centre (ICC) on 6th September 2016. This year’s second runner up under the Higher Education Category was UBD’s Siti Nurul Athirah binti Haji Mohamad. Siti Nurul Athirah will be graduating from UBD in October 2016 with a BSc in Computer Science. Her final year project titled V- Décor (under the supervision of Mr Chong Kim Onn) was submitted for the competition. Derived from the term Virtual Décor, V-Décor is a mobile application that allows mobile device users to place virtual furniture in an intended spot with the help of 3D and Augmented Reality technology. V-Décor provides a list of different types of furniture in 3D models that users can test out. Users may also interact with the furniture item by rotating it and taking screenshots of the furniture.

BICTA is an annual ICT competition that is endorsed by the Ministry of Communications in collaboration with the Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry (AITI) and InfoCom Federation Brunei (IFB). Introduced in 2004, BICTA is a platform for individuals, students and local companies to compete in the ICT arena and winners subsequently represent Brunei Darussalam in the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards. This year’s theme for BICTA 2016 is “Generasi Digital Berwawasan”.

In preparation for the competition, the BICTA working committee organised a series of workshops for the BICTA participants. According to Siti Nurul Athirah, these workshops enabled her to gain valuable insight on the latest technologies, learn basic financial management along with market validation, as well as effective presentation structures and pitching skills. When asked about how she felt regarding placing 3rd in her category for the competition, “Being able to represent UBD and successfully making it to top 3 has been an incredible achievement for me. This BICTA journey has inspired me and has opened up many opportunities”. Siti Nurul Athirah plans to expand her project further by integrating her mobile app with a local furniture company and hopes to one day start her own company.