20th FITIS Young Computer Scientists (YCS) competition

The Federation of Information Technology Industry of Sri Lanka (FITIS) – Software Chapter, is organising the Young Computer Scientist (YCS) competition together with the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the support of the University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC), for the 20^th time in Sri Lanka.

The competition is modelled on the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Competition and is targeted at recognising the ICT talents and innovations of school children at an early stage.

Commenting about the competition, a spokesperson from FITIS in a media release said: “This year, the YCS competition is stepping successfully into its 20^th consecutive year with the new normal, using a virtual platform to reach out to students enabling them to participate without any obstacles.”

FITIS has organised a few virtual awareness programmes (webinars) for IT Teachers and IT related authority of schools and students in order to increase the participants for 2021 YCS competition supported by Ministry of Education, UCSC and H One (Pvt) Ltd. The first such awareness session concluded on May 25 with the participation of over 500 students and teachers in attendance.

The application calling for the competition began in April and since there was an overwhelming response for the competition and high demand, participants requested that the application closing date be extended to June 30 while the project submission deadline has been extended to July 30. Judging will take place at UCSC or via online during the month of September 2021 under the guidance of UCSC.

This year, YCS has included a new “Open Category” for students aged 16 to 21 to provide opportunity for young talents with industry challenges covering the following areas:

Agro Tech Challenges

1. Technology Solution to optimise Agribusiness supply chain
2. Apply IOT, AI, Machine learning, and more to the Agriculture industry for the present and future

Renewable Energy Challenges

1. Enable access to energy (electricity) in an environmentally sustainable manner
2. Reimagine the future of energy management and distribution

Smart City Challenges

1. Future Home
2. Smart buildings with more sustainability and new technologies

The selection process is based on an initial assessment from a panel of judges, followed by a presentation/demonstration by the students and a final judgement by the same panel selected amongst industry and academia. YCS winners are announced by MoE and the award ceremony is conducted jointly by FITIS and MoE every year. The winners, the school principals and the IT teachers of all the winning schools are invited for the awards ceremony and recognised with big prizes being offered. One overall winner from each age group category of the competition will be nominated for the APICTA (Asia Pacific ICT Alliance) awards to be held in Malaysia 2021.