Incubatees take centre stage at BICTA

ICENTRE incubatees are showing their tech prowess at this year's Brunei ICT Awards (BICTA), showing off their completed and ready-to-be-marketed products as a result of their successful business incubation.

Having bagged several awards from the competition, the startups are hoping to gain an international foothold with their winning projects as the annual award is seen as a launching platform to catapult them into the global arena alongside ICT players, especially as all award recipients will be competing in the upcoming Asia-Pacific ICT Awards.

"This is the time where we can gain a bit more recognition for our products, making it easier for us to get our projects out into the market," said John Lim, general manager of John Harith Technology.

The firm received a Merit award under the e-Logistics category for its Halal Food Traceability system which he has conceptualised and developed during his incubation at the iCentre. The project aims to provide a comprehensive information infrastructure to support the Brunei Halal operations and branding initiatives utilising RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology.

The local firm was awarded a pilot project last year to develop a halal traceability and supply chain management system for the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA).

With the system already up and running, Lim was able to submit his project to BICTA and at the same time showcase his finished product to the public at the annual award as well as the upcoming APICTA, in the hopes of getting a marketing boost both locally and internationally.

Another award recipient, Shavon Hon of BruInnovEdu Services, revealed her completed project Learn thru Play at BICTA, which is set for market deployment within the next couple of months.

Hon was previously the winner at this year's Think Big Ignite Business Plan Competition for her innovative financial learning application. She was able to develop her business plan throughout the last four months as incubatee at the iCentre, and yesterday she showcased her project, which is primed for beta-testing, to the public during the exibition at the Empire Hotel & Country Club.

Her project was awarded the Merit award under the e-Learning category, along with a prize moeny of $5,000.

"BICTA helps increase our profile and add credibility into our product, and the upcoming APICTA will help boost our credibility even further and get our product to a wider audience and network," she said.

Also jointly winning the Merit award in the e-Learning category was iCentre incubatee PHMD Publishing for its interactive ebook on road safety in Brunei.

Ak Mohd Khairi Pg Hj Metussin, project manager of PHMD Publishing said that the ebook is the first of many ebooks to come from his startup during his incubation at the iCentre.

He said that his participation in BICTA as well as the upcoming APICTA would help boost his firm's credibility and gain international recognition, as he intends to produce and market more Made-in-Brunei products over the course of time.

The firm also recieved a Made-in-Brunei award in BICTA.

Another iCentre incubatee SocialBuzz Advertising also took part and won third place in the New Media and Entertainment Category at BICTA yesterday for its online microjobs social directory TheGigland.com.

Hiro Tien, the founder of the startup, revealed that the product is a spinoff project to his popular online group buying site Socialdeal.

The innovative service connects individuals with talents and skills from around the world and individuals looking to hire such talents and skills. Gigs and jobs are geo-tagged to specific locations on a projected interactive worldmap.

Tien hopes his winning project would gain international exposure in the upcoming APICTA, as the project is set to become the world's first global marketplace for the buying and selling of micro jobs.

BICTA was introduced in 2004 by the Ministry of Communications, and has since became an annual event to stimulate innovation and creativity in the ICT industry in Brunei.

The competition aims to become the software development benchmark for local companies to compete amongst themselves and eventually enable them to reach an international standard and to represent Brunei in the APICTA.

Brunei will host this year's APICTA in December.The Brunei Times