‘While some people believe that students from public universities are not proficient in English, I improved my English only when I was at university! In fact, for the competition, we presented our case in English and all of our references were also in English. From this competition, we learnt that in order to get our message across effectively, you need both the confidence to present your ideas and the ability to speak good English,?he adds.

The HSBC Young IT Entrepreneur Awards encourage creativity and entrepreneurship as teams are required to come up with innovative business ideas that involve the use of IT.

The winning business idea
‘Our business idea is a medical device which we call the Biochip Implantation and Monitoring System (BIMS). There are similar products in the market, for example, biochip implants for identification and security purposes. Thus, we actually made use of existing technologies from abroad and integrated them to create BIMS,?says Freda, who recently graduated in biochemistry. This idea developed from team leader Hock Kung's idea about a microchip. Hock Kung recently graduated in electrical engineering.

What does BIMS do? ‘It is a biochip implant in the human body which has three main health indicators, namely, the blood pressure level, heartbeat rate and protein (tumour-markers) intensity. Our subscribers will wear a ‘reader?or ‘scanner?which will transmit data to our monitoring system. We'll inform our subscribers if there is any irregularity detected. Our primary targets are the golden age and middle-aged groups as these groups of people are more susceptible to various diseases,?Freda explains.

‘The best part about BIMS is that if it works according to plan, we can save many lives and I think it will be another breakthrough in medical history,? she adds.

The sleepless nights
‘We took this competition more seriously and decided to give it our best shot when our submission was accepted into the second round. After all, there aren't many competitions around that offer a trip to the USA so we felt that this was a chance of a lifetime. The date of our presentation was just one week after the last day of our university examinations therefore we had less than a week to prepare for the presentation,?Yuen Meng recounts.

‘We devoted all our energies to the very few days that we had to prepare for the presentation. We worked throughout the days and nights but we were fortunate to have a group of friends who gave their comments in order to help us to improve our presentation. They were fundamental to our achievement besides our family and loved ones,?he adds.

The day of the competition
‘We were really nervous and worried during the presentation day. We kept thinking, ‘What if the program doesn't run properly? What if the laptop ‘hangs?during the presentation? What if our multimedia presentation doesn't play or if we run out of time??says Yuen Meng.

‘We were the third team to present and my head was spinning when we started our presentation. Luckily, there were so many friendly faces among the audience ?it helped ease my anxiety. We actually presented better than we did during our
rehearsals! However, we were not a 100 per cent sure we could win because the other teams were also quite good. What we thought was good might not have been good enough in the judges?eyes,?he continues.

‘I was so anxious about the results that I hardly ate anything during the reception dinner. When the announcement was made, I felt like time had frozen. Eventually, when the announcer revealed the Silver Award winner, we were jubilant because we somehow knew that we were the champion! That was the moment when all the flashes of the cameras blinded our vision. I felt like I was on top of the world,?Yuen Meng fondly recalls.

?..when the announcer revealed the Silver Award winner, we were jubilant because we somehow knew that we were the champion! That was the moment when all the flashes of the cameras blinded our vision. I felt like I was on top of the world?/i>

Advice for future participants
‘My team mates and I are just ordinary students; we are not even computer whizzes. Thus, winning this award is proof to us that hard work and perseverance will bring us to places we never thought was possible. Just like what Thomas Alva Edison once said, ‘Genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration,?opines Yuen Meng.

About the competition

Silver Award ?Team A-Team of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)

Bronze Award ?Team Mobility of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR)

The HSBC Young IT Entrepreneur Awards is open to diploma and degree students aged 25 and below. Each team can have up to three members and will have to submit a business idea that is creative and viable. This year's Gold Award winners walked away with a self-development fund of RM10,000 and will join winners of similar competitions in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Thailand on a week-long tailor-made study programme at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA in June this year.

The Silver Award went to Team A-Team of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), which received RM7,000 while Team Mobility of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) won the Bronze Award and walked away with RM3,000, plus a trip to Hong Kong to witness the grand final competition among the Malaysian Gold Award winners and the other three countries. The prizes were presented by HSBC's executive director and deputy chief executive John Coverdale.

Look out for doctorjob's Engineering 7, IT 7 and Hospitality & tourism 3 Courses NOW! magazines for more stories on the Malaysian winners?experience. For more details about the competition, log on to www.hsbc.com.my

Source: Business Courses NOW! Issue 9, Page 8.