Team members of SMK Tinggi Melaka celebrate their victory. — Photos courtesy of Petronas
The young innovators from SMK Paka are first runner-up in the AAY 2017 finale.
AAY 2017 top-three finalists from SMK Lutong in a group photo with Zainal and Firouz (standing front, sixth and seventh left, respectively).
KUALA LUMPUR: At the end of a long, nail-biting night, the Petronas All About Youth (AAY) 2017 became a showdown between two mobile apps – one to help students study history, and another to help the community get in touch with the local authorities and service providers.
The all-boys team from SMK Tinggi Melaka developed the ‘HISTOMAP’ – an app to help students study history by making mindmaps of topics and making it available on mobile.
The all-girls team from SMK Paka, Terengganu, developed the ‘ACU PAKA’ – an app that makes it easy for the community to find help or services in their constituency of Paka. The team even released the blueprint to other constituencies in Terengganu to allow the people there replicate the system.
Upon the announcement of SMK Tinggi Melaka as the winner, the reaction was as one would expect from a room of 250 people – the majority of whom were 16-year-olds who had been riding high on adrenaline over the past several days.
Once the confetti settled, SMK Tinggi Melaka spokesperson Muhammad Anis Firdausi Hazmi told reporters that they are proud to represent Melaka in the competition.
“We’re very proud to win,” he said, before being interrupted by cheering from his team-mates.
Anis explained that his team broke down 42 chapters of secondary-level History subject (Form 1 to 5) into 370 mindmaps, which were set down in PDF format and added onto the app.
“The challenge was to complete this in eight weeks, considering that we were also studying for exams. Really, we only had three weeks to prepare and promote it,” he said.
The typing team digitised the mindmaps created by the students and verified by their teachers, while the promotional team strove to get the word out and the app into the phones of fellow students all over the country.
The team had a lot riding on them as it was the first time that their school made it into the grand finale. Now having secured the championship trophy, they would push forward with the app to continue helping fellow History subject students.
“We will collaborate with the Education Ministry so that this app wouldn’t end here. All students in Malaysia can use this (app) to help them in studying history,” said Anis.
Meanwhile, Nur Aisya Abd Razak from SMK Paka credited her entire team for their hard work that ultimately secured them the first runner-up spot.
“Our app has contact information of government agencies, small businesses and service providers. It’s easy for the community to find information because it is specific for this community. We also produced a blueprint so other communities could do the same.”
Chloe Yeo of SMK Lutong disclosed that the most they expected from AAY 2017 was to gain some experience from working on a sandfly remedy – ultimately producing the insect repellent ‘Repello’ and ‘Sewangian’ – a concentrate that could be used in a room diffuser.
Both are made from natural ingredients, inspired by the Orang Ulu community.
“We didn’t even expect to win (the) state-level (round),” she told reporters, adding that sandfly bites are a serious problem for their school as some people are allergic to it.
However when asked what plans they had for their prize money, Yeo expressed hope that it would go into fixing the drainage at their school.
“It’s often flooded during heavy rain. We always have to wear slippers to school.”
The other two finalists were SMK Sindumin from Sabah and SMK Lokman Hakim from Johor.
The Sabahans transformed an abandoned building into a local mini library, while the Johoreans came up with an affordable venue and facility to promote archery to their local communities.
The prizes were presented by Education deputy director-general Dr Zainal Aalam Hassan, together with Petronas senior vice-president (corporate strategy) Firouz Asnan, during the gala dinner / prize presentation at Impiana KLCC Hotel on Thursday night.
For Zainal, the AAY programme is something that he is very proud of.
“With its goal to empower the Malaysian youths to play their part in creating a harmonious community and promote social cohesion, it is very much in line with Ministry of Education’s efforts to equip the future generation with the right skills to face the challenges of the future.”
He added that one of the highlights of the education blueprint is the aspiration of the ministry to create an ecosystem where the students are exposed to building shared experiences and aspirations that form the foundation of unity.
“Here today, I am pleased to see that we are in an event that promotes just that – at the same time, (it) encourages one to think creatively as well as innovatively, for the benefit of the society at large.”
In his remarks, Firouz said for next year, Petronas would gather all 4,600 AAY participants and enrol them as AAY Alumni members, where the corporation would commit to nurturing their talents further and giving them the exposure that they truly deserve.
The final assessment was conducted on Thursday morning by a panel of judges from the Education Ministry, Petronas, TalentCorp Malaysia and Teach for Malaysia.
Projects were accessed based on creativity, presentation clarity, originality, impact and sustainability.
Petronas AAY, now in its fourth year, is a key ‘corporate social investment’ (CSI) programme that aims to nurture and empower well-rounded Malaysian youths to reach out and make a difference in their community in areas of social development, community wellbeing and environment.