APICTA AWARDS 2018 - Team VeriNews

Wednesday, 10 Oct 2018

2.15am

I could feel the rumble of the engine beneath my feet as the plane screech to halt into the airport. I glanced around the aircraft as the clicking and clanking of seatbelts echoed throughout the cabin. As I hoisted myself up from my comfy blue leathered seat which I had been uncomfortably dozing off for the past 4 hours, throngs of chinese commuters hurriedly scrambled out of their seats, grabbed their hand-carries as they unlatched the overhead compartment, and hastily shovelled their way out of the airplane. I sat patiently in my seat, waiting for the crowd to disperse, I peered wearily out of the window, staring blankly at the beautiful Guangzhou night skyline. As my eyes darted from left to right, nervously scanning for signs of life outside the airplane, four white bolded words plastered to the top of the adjacent building suddenly caught my eye: “Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport”. A bout of nervousness set it as I suddenly realise what i was here for; the annual Asia Pacific ICT Alliance Awards (APICTA Awards)

Abit About APICTA

The Asia Pacific ICT Alliance Awards, or the APICTA Awards for short, is an international awards program organize by APICTA annually, which aims to increase ICT awareness in the community and assist in bridging the digital divide., by providing networking and product benchmarking opportunities to ICT innovators and entrepreneurs.

The award is split into 17 categories, ranging from Media and Entertainment to Students to Manufacturing to Government and Citizen Services and much more; and I was lucky to be 1 out of the 9 students representing Singapore in the Senior Student category for APICTA Awards 2018 held in Guangzhou from 9-13 October 2018.

During the award, each group consisting of a maximum of 5 members would be given 10 minutes to present their product to a group of international judges, where they would be judged based on their product’s Uniqueness, Value to Community, Functionality and Features and Application of Technology. This is followed by another 10 minutes of a Question and Answer session, in which the judges can get to know more about a team’s product in order to decide on a winning team.

Thursday, 11 Oct 2018

2.00pm

As I hurried my pace through the streets of Guangzhou to our venue on a cool Thursday afternoon, I found myself glancing at my watch more and more often. It was 2.00pm, exactly 1.5 hours before our big presentation. I knew we were on time, or maybe even too early, but I could feel a bout of nervousness and anxiety set in whenever I look at my watch, each time the feeling stronger than the previous. We entered Gardens Hotel at about 2.30pm, and quickly made our way up to the 17th floor where our presentation room was.

The 17th floor was packed. Hundreds of students from various countries all suited up in their blazers and ties, stood nervously outside each of their presentation rooms, one hand supporting their laptop; the other shaking nervously inside their blazer pocket. Our attendance was promptly taken, and we immediately hasten to the waiting area outside our presentation room. By then it was only 2.45pm; we still had 45 minutes till our presentation started. I glanced around the room, staring nervously at the other competitors as they nervously stared back at me. Anxious thoughts started running through my mind; “What if I forget my lines?What if I couldn’t answer the judges question?What if we couldn’t even win a Merit Award?”.

3.30pm

I felt an unusual wave of calmness set in as i stepped into the presentation room. It was a small 3m by 2m room. There was a gigantic TV at the front of the room and opposite it were 4 judges, staring intensely at us as we walked through the door. I had every reason to be nervous. But I wasn’t. Maybe because I knew that it was already too late to be nervous. Everything that had to be done was already done. There was no more time to make any changes or be nervous at all.

4.00pm

“It’s over!”. That was the first thing that ran through my mind as I stepped out of the room. Months and months of preparation, hundreds and thousands of lines on code and 2000 miles flown just for this 20 minute presentation that was finally over. The presentation went fairly well; none of us forget our lines and we managed to convey our most important points to the judges within the short 10 minutes we were given. I was fairly confident that we would be able to get at least a Merit Award.

Saturday, 13 October

6.00pm

You could not believe how relieved I felt when the presenters announced that our team had received the Merit Award. Although we were not able to get the Top Award that we had striven so hard to achieve, I felt that at least the months of preparation and hours of presentation had finally amounted to something. While this was not my first trip to China, it was definitely my most memorable.