Thai youth showcase international talent | Bangkok Post: tech

SOFTWARE DESIGN COMPETITION

After a Thai student team won the gold medal at the Imagine Cup three years ago, this year the SKeeK team from Kasetsart University has again raised the kingdom's profile by taking the grand title at the worldwide software design competition held last week in Warsaw, Poland.

Microsoft Thailand joined a lively welcome-home celebration at Suvarnabhumi Airport to congratulate the Worldwide Imagine Cup 2010 winners.

The team, from the Department of Computer Engineering, Kasetsart University, comprised of Krithee Sirisith, Pichai Sodsai, Thanasunn Dilokpinitnun and Nonthawat Srichad, was among four finalists chosen from a total of 300,000 students from more than 100 different countries.

SKeeK impressed the judges with the exceptional creativity shown in their 'eyeFeel' application, designed to help the hard of hearing communicate with others.

Taking home a cash prize of $25,000 (810,000 baht), the victory makes Thailand the first country in the world to ever win the award twice and the first Asian country to receive an award in this category _ offering further evidence of the great potential of Thai students to come up with new innovations that can really make an impact at international level.

''When we passed the first round of presentation, becoming one of 12 teams

[to pass] from [a total field of] 68 teams, we were very glad,'' said SKeeK member Pichai Sodsai.

''Then we were very excited when it was announced that we had passed the second round, being one of the six teams to do so.''

Though they were surprised, Pichai said their third presentation ensured that they would join the three absolute final teams.

The questions and answers after the presentation also helped influence the judge's consideration, he said.

''It was a fantastic moment when we heard that we had won, but besides the victory we feel that we have gained valuable experiences from the whole process that we could not have gained from a classroom alone,'' said Pichai.

''We are proud to be the ones waving the Thai flag on the global stage and this just shows that applications developed by Thai students can compete in the wider world.

''Like all of the teams who entered, we don't wait for the future _ we create the future and change the world.''

SKeeK chose to address the needs of the hearing-impaired with their original 'eyeFeel' application.

Designed to help bridge the gap between the hard of hearing and others, the innovative application creates an augmented reality environment that brings together speech and face recognition in order to convert spoken English into text, with the aid of a virtual conversation text balloon and sign-language animations displayed in real-time.

Currently the ''eyeFeel'' application supports English language only, but plans are afoot to develop Thai-language support in the future.

SKeeK member Krithee Sirisith said the system requires only a webcam, microphone and eyeFeel software. For the hearing-impaired, the program will transform verbal sentences to sign sentences with speech recognition, sign language and face detection.

According to the team: ''There are more than 360 million hearing-impaired people worldwide, but eyeFeel's solution will enable those people to study in normal schools and universities.''

In addition to SKeeK, this year also marked the first time that two teams from Thailand have made it to the final round.

In the category of embedded development, the SuperLove Factory team from King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi made it to the final six for their BrailleEye application, which creates simulated images through special processing technology for blind people.

Another Thai team was JubJub from Mahidol University, whose 'Junk Master' application, designed to encourage people to learn the importance of recycling, made it to the final three in the Game Design category.

Junk Master: The Journey to Junk Lord is a creative and innovative game. Moreover, it can educate players about garbage classification and the three Rs _ Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

The player will be a ''Junk Master'' who collects garbage around the world and is faced with exciting obstacles from the evil ''Junk Lord''.

The BrailleEye application helps the visually impaired by using image processing technology to build simulated images to be displayed on a Braille board.

The program can be used with other applications such as the language translation into Braille, voice controlling or as media with televisions and computers.