Alumnus Receives Nanyang Alumni Service Award (Oct
2009)
 |
| Mr Wee receiving
Nanyang Alumni Service Award from Dr Su Guaning,
NTU President |
Alumnus Mr Wee Keat Kheng, Raymond was conferred
the Nanyang Alumni Service Award, on 24 October,
at the Nanyang Alumni Awards 2009. The annual award
ceremony, held at the Nanyang Auditorium, honours
exceptional members of the Alumni who have rendered
outstanding service and contributed in furthering
the interests of the University, and its alumni.
Mr Wee graduated from SCE in 2001, and is presently
the Section Head for ICT, School of Electronics & Info-Comm
Technology at ITE College East, in Simei. Mr Wee
has greatly contributed to the School, where he
laid the fundamental building blocks of the School
of Computer Engineering Alumni Association (SCEAA),
in mid 2001.
On behalf of the School, congratulations Mr Wee!
IES-Yayasan Mendaki Scholarship for SCE Student (Oct
2009)
Third year computer science undergraduate, Ahmad Hafiz Bin Ismail was awarded the Institution of Engineers (IES)-Yayasan Mendaki Scholarship, on 11 October during the 43rd IES Annual Dinner and Dance.
Introduced in 1985, the scholarship is awarded to promising local Muslim students, pursuing an education in Engineering, at the tertiary level. Only two such scholarships are available annually, with one winner coming from a university and the other a polytechnic. Delighted by the win, Ahmad Hafiz is motivated to strive even harder to achieve his goal of pursuing a career in Singapore’s creative infocomm industry.
The School is proud of his achievement and extends its heartiest congratulations to Ahmad Hafiz!
Media Coverage:
Berita Harian, 12 Sep
SCE
Team Bags SiTF Merit Award (Sept
2009)
 |
| Chua Khim
Teck (right) receiving the award on behalf
of his team |
Undergraduates Chua Khim Teck and Hoon Thien Rong
made their mark at this year’s SiTF Awards
2009. The duo clinched the Merit Award in the Tertiary
Student Category, for their innovative application Hibernater.
The application eliminates the hassle of conventional
file saving methods such as using portable devices
or emails, where it conveniently saves the files
and web addresses on to a secured server, hosted
at a local data centre. The files can then be retrieved
by the user at any time, on a computer equipped
with the application.
Organised by the Singapore infocomm Technology
Federation (SiTF), the awards aim to provide due
recognition to technology innovation developed
by local enterprises or institutions, where it
offers an excellent platform for homegrown innovators
to create awareness. To earn their spot at the
finals, the SCE duo had to pitch their ideas over
two rounds to a panel of industry experts.
The results were announced on 25 September and
with strong competition, the win came as a pleasant
surprise for the students. “We participated
initially to try. Winning this award motivates
us to improve the product further and to make it
more useful to users. It also serves as recognition
of our efforts spent in the past two years,” said
Khim Teck.
The application is available and free for download
at this site: www.hibernater.com
SCE Student and Research Associate Listed
as Singapore’s Top IT Developers (Sept
2009)
Undergraduate Aaron Ng Shuo and Research Associate Lu Yixiang were among the 26 local software developers featured in The Straits Times’ Digital Life feature, for their innovative creations that have added to Singapore’s efficiency and good reputation as an IT hub.
A first year computer engineering student, Aaron designed an awards registration software for the Singapore Navy, while former SCE student Yixiang, now a Research Associate for the School’s, Computational Arts Group was nominated for developing the AniMaker, a software application that simplifies the process of stop motion animation.
Media Coverage:
The Straits Times Digital Life, 23 September 2009
PhD Student Wins Microsoft Research Asia 2009 Fellowship Award (Sept
2009)
 |
| MSRA 2009 recipient Duan Li Xin |
SCE student Duan Li Xin’s dedication and passion for research has earned him the Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) 2009 Award, making it the second consecutive year for SCE. This achievement is testament of the School’s research caliber, and its ability to groom promising researchers such as Li Xin.
Li Xin is honoured to have received the award
and is encouraged to strive even harder to pursue
his research goals. “I
would like to thank my supervisor Assistant Professor
Xu Dong, Assistant Professor Ivor Tsang as well
as the professors, and friends from CeMNet, for
their encouragement and guidance. I do hope that
one day I will be able to design something useful
for our daily lives,” said Li Xin.
The annual Microsoft Research Asia Fellowship
Program began in 1999 to support talented PhD students,
who demonstrate potential for research leadership.
Winners of the award will receive a cash prize,
a Fellowship Plaque and internship opportunities
at Microsoft Research Asia (Beijing). For 2009,
only two such honours have been awarded to students
from a university in Singapore. Li Xin is notably
the only NTU student to receive the award, this
year.
PhD
Student Receives Grant for ICCV (Sept 2009)
 |
| From left to right: Assoc Prof Yow Kin Choong, Professor Roberto Cipolla (ICCV Program Chair), Jimmy Addison Lee
|
With an impact factor of 1.78 and an acceptance
rate of about 10%, the International Conference
on Computer Vision (ICCV) is a prestigious
event widely recognised by experts, in the field
of Computer Vision. Earning a position at the coveted
ICCV 2009, which will be held in Kyoto, Japan,
from 29 September – 4 October, is PhD student
Jimmy Addison Lee.
Jimmy has been awarded a student grant to present
the paper, “Robust Matching of Building
Facades under Large Viewpoint Changes”.
The paper will address the issue of extreme wide-baseline
matching in building facades.
“The School provides a good environment for us to conduct research. I
have also been fortunate to have an understanding and supportive supervisor, Assoc
Prof Yow Kin Choong” said
Jimmy.
Best
Application Paper Award for SCE Professor (Aug
2009)
 |
| Third from
left: Associate Professor Li Jinyan at the
ADMA Conference |
Associate Professor Li Jinyan together with peers
from the Institute of Zoology and Computer Network
Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
received the Best Application Paper Award,
for their submission titled, “Discovery
of Migration Habitats and Routes of Wild Bird Species
by Clustering and Association Analysis”,
at the International Conference on Advanced Data
Mining and Applications (ADMA) 2009. The
event was held on 17 -19 August, in Beijing.
The winning paper describes the use of data mining
techniques that are able to analyse the migration
patterns of birds, in relation to weather conditions
as well as the spread of infectious diseases. The
collaboration is a good example of another successful
multi-disciplinary research venture between SCE
and its partners.
Team
from SCE Wins Best Paper at ICSBB ‘09 (Aug
2009)
The paper titled, “Speech
Reconstruction in Post-Laryngectomised Patients
by Formant Manipulation and Pitch Profile Generation” authored by
PhD student Hamid Reza Sharifzadeh, Associate Professor
Ian McLoughlin, and Research Associate Farzaneh
Ahmadi has earned the title of Best Paper at the
2009 International Conference
of System Biology and Bioengineering (ICSBB ’09), which was
held in London from 1-3 July.
The winning paper from SCE investigates the possibilities
of helping laryngectomy patients regain their ability
to speak with a more natural voice. It also hopes
to provide patients with the freedom to communicate
using a mobile phone, without surgery. The method
uses auditory information, allied with analysis,
formant insertion, as well as novel methods for
spectrum enhancement and formant smoothing. It
builds upon the teams previously published work
that uses an analysis-by-synthesis approach.
Organised by the International Association of
Engineers, the conference provides members of the
engineering community with a good platform to meet
and exchange ideas. The event was attended by over
700 participants from 30 countries worldwide.
SCE Trio Make Headlines (Aug
2009)
Computer Science students Rajamoorthy Karapaya, Chua Khim Teck and Hoon Thien Rong made headlines in this year’s National Day supplement, of the Straits Times. The article titled
“Our Tech Geeks Rock” is a special feature dedicated to showcase the innovative spirit present among Singaporeans.
The trio were mentioned in the article for developing a location-based mobile phone social network called, MyWobile. The application is the first, truly Location Based Service (LBS) on mobile, in Singapore. This promising application seeks to integrate social networking,
e-commerce and gaming. In addition, it allows developers to rapidly build as well as deploy LBS applications within a day without incurring any high-costs. The project was first launched on
15 December 2008, in collaboration with key partners such as Azione Capital and Microsoft.
The application which runs on all Symbian Series 60 Third Edition was first launched for Nokia phones. Since then, the students have been working towards making MyWobile available to Sony Ericsson, and Windows mobile phones.
The application is available at the following
site: http://mywobile.com/.
Media Coverage:
http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/CorpComms2/Documents/2009/Aug/ST_090809_20_Our%20tech%20geeks%20rock.pdf
SCE Professor Honoured with National Day Award (Aug
2009)
 |
| Professor Seah Hock Soon recipient of the Public Administration Medal (Silver) |
The National Day Awards recognise various forms of merit and service to Singapore. The School is proud to announce that Professor Seah Hock Soon has been honoured with the Public Administration Medal (Silver). The Public Administration Medal is awarded to individuals for efficiency, competence and industry. The Professor has made great contributions to Singapore’s scientific community for over 20 years, especially in the area of Computer Graphics and Imaging. Apart from being the Director of the School’s gameLAB, Prof Seah is the Founding President of both the ACM SIGGRAPH Singapore and the South East Asian Computer Graphics Society (SEAGRAPH).
Congratulations, Prof Seah!
SCE
wins Best Paper (Jul
2009)
PhD student Liu Yongchao together with Professors
Bertil Schmidt and Douglas Maskell were decidedly,
the winning authors at the 20th IEEE International
Conference on Application-specific Systems, Architectures
and Processors. The SCE trio clinched the Best
Paper Award for their submission titled, MSA-CUDA:
Multiple Sequence Alignment on Graphics Processing
Units with CUDA. The event this year will
be hosted in Boston, USA from 7- 9 July, where
it will cover the theory and practice of application-specific
systems, architectures and processors.
SCE
Professor Clinches Excellence in Teaching Award (Mar
2009)
 |
| Assoc Prof
Ong Yew Soon (right) receiving his award
from Dr Su Guaning, NTU President |
Associate Professor Ong Yew Soon was honoured at
the Nanyang Awards 2008 for his affection of inculcating
good values and knowledge to students. Held at the
Nanyang Auditorium on 27 March, the event is a means of celebrating the
achievements and contributions of faculty, staff
and students throughout the University. Winner of
the Excellence in Teaching Award, Associate Professor
Ong believes in maintaining a friendly, open-minded
approach to teaching. “A crucial aspect of
teaching lies in understanding how people learn and
adapting to the needs of students. Interaction provides
an excellent source for improving my teaching technique,” explained
the Professor whose goal is to inspire, encourage
and motivate students to learn and succeed.
SCE Staff Nominated as Nokia Visiting Professor (Feb 2009)
Adjunct Associate Professor Dr Li Haizhou, from the Division of Computing Systems at SCE has been nominated by the Nokia Foundation to work and lecture in Finland. Aside from working and lecturing in Finland, Professor Li who specialises in improving the way people and computers communicate with each other will receive a grant valued at 10,000 Euros (about $20,000). Only two such scientists have been honoured the title of ‘Nokia Visiting Professors’ for 2009. Past Nokia Foundation winners include Mr Linus Trovalds, who created the Linux open source operating system, and virtual world Habbo’s creators Aapo Kyrola and Sampo Kiralainen.
Champion
at the Youth Research Program’s 5th Anniversary
Challenge (Feb
2009)
 |
| From left to
right: Ms Noreena AbuBakar, Director, A-STAR
IBN, Pan Zheng Xiang and Prof. Jackie Y.
Ying, Executive Director A-STAR IBN |
For its 5th Anniversary, the Institute
of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) has
looked to Singapore’s youth to illustrate
the impact and potential of research through a
competition titled, Youth Research Program’s
5th Anniversary Challenge. Students
were required to create a multimedia presentation
on the given theme “How Research Impacts
our Lives”. Each entry was judged based
on its creativity and originality, design and layout,
as well as content. Winning this national challenge
was second year Computer Engineering student Pan
Zheng Xiang, whose goal has always been to “transform
lives with the innovative use of computer technologies”. Zheng
Xiang has also been shortlisted as one of the candidates
for IT Youth Award 2009, for his achievements
and contributions to the development of the IT
industry.
PhD Student Awarded PSIVT Grant (Jan 2009)
PhD Student Jimmy Addison Lee has already received good news for this brand new year. A perfect start to 2009, our PhD student has been honoured with a student grant to attend the Pacific Rim Symposium on Image and Video Technology (PSIVT) 2009. Each year only 12 such grants are presented to students worldwide. Students are required to submit authored papers which will then be evaluated by the Organising Committee. Jimmy’s paper titled, ‘Combining Invariant and Corner-like Features to Optimize Matching’ was among the few accepted by the panel. The event which is to be hosted from 13-19 January in Tokyo, Japan will provide researchers from both academia and the industry with a platform to showcase and explore the newest research and development of image and video technology.
