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Albert Wijaya, a MEng Mechanical Engineering student who recently graduated from Heriot-Watt University Malaysia, received the Gold Award under the Design Track of the ICDL Asia Digital Challenge 2021.
An annual student competition that invites students from secondary schools and universities, the ICDL Asia Digital Challenge 2021 introduces participants to the world of emerging technologies, data analytics and design via three competition tracks, namely Business, Design and Emerging Technologies.
More than 500 students from nine Asia-Pacific countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Thailand and China, participated in this competition which consists of three rounds. In the first and second national-level rounds, Albert, along with other participants from Indonesia, were quizzed on their knowledge of a software, SOLID EDGE.
Eventually, Albert made it as one of the two national representatives from his country to compete with other international finalists in the Asia-Pacific region in the Grand Final of the competition. In this third and final round, participants were instructed to conceptualise a futuristic table that incorporated the letters I, C, D and L in the design.
Albert felt pleasantly surprised when he was announced as the winner of the Gold Award. A piece of coursework in Albert’s second year of engineering studies kickstarted his interest in creating computer-aided design (CAD) models. Transforming a rough 2D sketch into a photorealistic 3D image gave him a sense of joy and achievement. Eventually, this led to his decision to participate in this competition and take on more challenges.
Albert credited the university and his engineering projects for encouraging him to think out of the box, for these projects had inspired him to come up with his winning design. He also thanked his parents and colleagues for their unwavering support during the competition. Finally, he offered a piece of advice to students who intend to join similar competitions, “Just participate in the competition like taking up your coursework. It will never be a waste of time, even if we do not win. There are things that we can learn by joining a competition, such as the knowledge, experience and skills.”