Two Malaysian students – namely Cham Swee Han and Tan Yong Ze from Taylor’s University and Sunway University, respectively – would be flying the Malaysian flag at the upcoming ASEAN Data Science Explorers (ASEAN DSE) 2022 Regional Finals set to take place in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on 12 October 2022.
The competition is aimed at promoting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) while also empowering youths across the ASEAN region to take part in tackling pressing socio-economic issues across the region. This is achieved through data-driven proposals that would contribute to the achievement of the UN-SDGs within the region.
It is also aimed at empowering youths across the 10 ASEAN Member States with data analytics skills and other relevant skills such as problem-solving skill, critical thinking skill, analytical thinking skill, collaboration skill, and communication skill.
In August, Swee Han and Yong Ze had won the National Finals, with teams from HELP University emerged together with Universiti Sains Malaysia and Universiti Malaya emerging as the runners-up.
Calling themselves ‘Team 002’, the project spearheaded by Swee Han and Yong Ze focused on bridging responsible consumption and production through smallholder farming in ASEAN.
The friendship between both these young men runs deep, having first met while volunteering with the Malaysian Social Project (also known as ‘SOCIAL’).
SOCIAL, with the tagline of ‘building socially conscious leaders’, is aimed at providing organisations with data-driven, pragmatic, and effective solutions, should they lack the flexibility and resources to produce themselves.
Both young men agree that the youths in Malaysia are highly driven and motivated in making a change in our country.
“However, they currently lack the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in solving real issues. We aim to give students the confidence and skill to work with third sector organisations to solve their most pressing issues. As a result, we want our alumni to take their learnings and apply it to the next social issue in our country, becoming socially conscious leaders,” they said.
They then got to know about the ASEAN DSE and ‘decided to give it a shot’.
“I have always been interested in problem solving, deck building and all that stuff – and Swee Han and I decided to test ourselves in a ‘real world scenario’,” said Yong Ze.
For Swee Han, data science has always been his passion as he is intrigued by how data can be turned into ‘insights’.
“Data analytics is important in helping businesses optimise their performances. By implementing it into the business model, companies can help reduce costs by identifying more efficient ways of doing business, make better decisions while also improving customer experiences,” he said.
By joining the ADSE competition, they felt that their knowledge and skills were further refined to become ‘essential skills for the future’.
Having been endorsed by the ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Youth (SOMY) and ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Education (SOM-ED), the ASEAN DSE supports the achievement of the ASEAN Work Plan on Youth and Education 2021-2025.
In this competition, each team of registered participants (one team comprised of two students from the same ASEAN country) is required to develop data analytics storyboards/proposals using SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) and choosing an issue in ASEAN across the six selected SDGs to solve through their data analytics storyboard.
Both Swee Han and Yong Ze described SAP as being ‘user-friendly’.
Today, SAP is the leading provider of enterprise applications software. In Malaysia and throughout the world, the company remain committed to nation-building and enablement of our technologies to realise sustainable growth for the country and rakyat.
For Swee Han and Yong Ze, though, the ADSE Regional Finals is an important milestone in their lives.
“We feel very comfortable with each other and will be doing our best in Phnom Penh,” they said.
“It’s definitely a valuable experience for us both, and we are grateful to SAP and the ASEAN Foundation for all the good work they are doing in empowering the youth communities not only here in Malaysia but also across all the various ASEAN countries.”
