The ASEAN Foundation and SAP SE are pleased to announce that three teams from Sunway University, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, University of Nottingham Malaysia, and Universiti Teknologi MARA have emerged as the winners in ASEAN Data Science Explorers (ASEAN DSE) 2021 National Finals – Malaysia that took place on Aug 26, virtually.

ASEAN DSE is a regional programme by the ASEAN Foundation and SAP that aims to catalyze activism and critical thinking among university students in ASEAN.

The three winners were judged based on their ability to design a best all-rounded concept that tackles ASEAN socio-economic issues, driven by data insights. The judging criteria looked at the creativity, feasibility, innovation, and the team’s ability to demonstrate the solution’s implementation.

As the first winner, Team Brain Drain from Sunway University will represent Malaysia for the virtual Regional Finals of ASEAN DSE 2021.

The details of the winners, below:

First winner – Team Brain Drain, comprising Ryan Kok Lam Liew and Jia Hui Ng from Sunway University, took first place at the National Finals. Their project focused on Prioritizing E-waste.

Runner-up – Team Blaze, comprising Melanie Ying Hui Oon and Yeu Fung Leong from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and the University of Nottingham Malaysia. Their project was designed to improve agriculture production through digitalisation.

Second runner-up – Meanwhile, Team Neoteric, comprising Nur Adlina Ahmad and Zetty Ilham Abdullah from Universiti Teknologi MARA. Their project is on empowering women in ASEAN.

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, ASEAN DSE continues to equip youth from across the region with essential digital skills by organising its key activities, such as enablement sessions and data analytics competition, virtually.

Running for the fifth year, ASEAN DSE has a renewed focus on sustainable development goals (SDGs) that target climate and sustainability.

In addition, the programme also collaborated with Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in ten ASEAN countries to deliver in-person enablement sessions to youth with limited access to technology and youth with disabilities.

The collaboration with NGOs made it possible for the programme to deliver SAP Analytics Cloud training to 11,782 students and lecturers in 2021, which marks a 158% increase compared to 2020 (4,563 youths and lecturers).

Furthermore, this year saw 714 students from ten ASEAN countries across the region competing to represent their country in the National Finals.

The Malaysia’s National Finals was also live-streamed on Facebook, attracting more than 500 viewers.

“2021 marks the fifth-year milestone for the ASEAN DSE competition. Initially, started as a platform to empower youths with digital skills to grow the next generation of leaders.

This year, we have added climate action as a key focus in our program, aligned with our broader ASEAN priorities.”

“I am proud of the diversity of the participants joining this initiative and their passion for creating and delivering social impact. ASEAN DSE augments the future workforce by enabling youth so that we, as one ASEAN, can be a sustainable economic powerhouse,” said Managing Director of SAP Malaysia, Hong Kok Cheong.

“ASEAN DSE is the embodiment of our commitment with SAP to empower ASEAN youth with future-ready skills and accelerate the growth of digital economy in the region amid this difficult period.”

“We are very impressed to see so many talented youths presenting innovative data-driven proposals today. It is a testament to what our youth can do when provided with an immersive platform to showcase their talents.”

“We believe that if given the opportunity, our ASEAN youth can create impactful solutions for the community to prosper. We also hope that the collaboration between ASEAN Foundation and SAP can inspire more public-private partnership in the future to support the development of our future generation,” added ASEAN Foundation’s Executive Director, Dr. Yang Mee Eng.

“Data analytics has helped us make the process of identifying problems in ASEAN countries, analysing data, and coming up with solutions to solve the identified problems much easier. With that, we would like to thank the ASEAN Foundation and SAP as the organisers of the ASEAN Data Science Explorers for providing this opportunity for us to venture further into this field to get hands-on experience in exploring data, and creating data-driven solutions,” said a representative from Team Brain Drain.