Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

All 33 teams who took part at the inaugural CIMB 3D Conquest were given job offers for their efforts in the finals held at Putrajaya. CIMB Group Chief Executive Officer Tengku Dato’ Sri Zafrul Aziz said that CIMB recognises the 115 students’ achievements to reach the finals after months of hard work over the course of the competition.

The hackathon-style competition was open to university students across ASEAN. Finalists from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam contended for the title of Regional Champion in their respective categories. Each Regional Champion team was rewarded with US$8,000 plus a trip to Silicon Valley. Three teams were crowned Champions in their respective categories of Data Science, Fintech and Coding at the Grand Finale.

For the data science category, teams had to solve business problems and propose solutions by building predictive models using data. In the fintech category, teams had to develop breakthrough ideas towards improving customer experience. The coding category saw teams apply coding skills to develop a prototype for digital validation.

The regional champion for the Data Science category was Team Jet Et Al, from Thammasat, Chulalongkorn and Mahidol Universities, Thailand, who used alternative sources of data to assess loan applicants’ credit risk, to supplement existing credit risk models. Jet, team member of Team Jet Et Al said, “I think the main reason that drove us here today is the mixture within the team because two of us have business backgrounds while our other two members had the technical expertise. It helped to focus and churn out the output from our model.”

Team Jake from the University of Reading, Malaysia was the regional champion for the Fintech category. They were challenged to develop a contactless payment solution using a specific technology. “Coming from a business school background, we don’t have coding expertise, but this challenge has provided us with a humbling learning experience. It wasn’t easy. We stayed up the whole night working, but it is rewarding although tiring. It has been an awesome journey with my teammates,” said Jia Ling, team member of Team Jake.

Team Mamadei from University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia, bagged the regional champion title in Coding when they presented a prototype incorporating environmental, social and governance elements. “CIMB has provided us with job offers. We are definitely looking forward to it after we graduate. We hope we can take our winning project further by refining it and implementing some new stuff,” explained Yee Mun Hong, team member of Team Mamadei.

CIMB Group Chief People Officer Datuk Hamidah Naziadin said, “This competition has been an excellent platform to discover the participants’ creativity and mental agility in the three categories featured. In today’s digital and data-driven era, ASEAN’s future prosperity depends on developing the region’s young talents with the necessary skills to leverage data, digital innovations and disruptive technology. The impressive quality of the participants for the inaugural CIMB 3D Conquest bodes well for developing a robust pipeline of digitally-groomed talent to support CIMB’s future growth.”

A total of 715 teams, or over 2,500 participants from 200 universities across ASEAN took part in the preliminary rounds. Subsequently, 213 teams from seven countries made it to the country level held in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. At the Grand Finale, a total of nine teams were selected as winners. The first Runner-Up teams took home US$5,000 each while the second Runner-Up teams walked away with US$3,000 each.

CIMB 3D Conquest is supported by Cloudera and Fusionex for the Data Science track, SAS Malaysia and Amazon Web Services for FinTech and Oracle Malaysia for Coding, with Malaysia Airlines being the Official Airline.

CIMB 3D Conquest is also supported by the Ministry of Education Malaysia, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and Disruptive Tech Asean.

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