Silicon Valley trip & CIMB job offer for 3D Conquest winners

PUTRAJAYA: Budding data wizards, coding ninjas and digital disruptors were discovered at CIMB Group’s inaugural 3D Conquest – a hackathon-style competition open to Asean university.

Three teams were crowned champions in categories of Data Science, Fintech and Coding at the Grand Finale recently. Thirty-three teams involving 115 participants from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam contended for the title of Regional Champion in their categories.

Each Regional Champion team was rewarded with USD8,000 plus a trip to Silicon Valley, and all 115 contestants received a standing job or internship offer from CIMB.

The competition began on Sept 18, starting with 715 teams, or over 2,500 participants from 200 universities across Asean. Subsequently, 213 teams from seven countries made it to the country level held in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. At the Grand Finale, a total of nine teams were selected as winners.

“As a leading Asean universal bank, CIMB’s aspirations are also focused on opening up opportunities for the region’s youths,” CIMB Group Chief People Officer, Datuk Hamidah Naziadin said.

“This competition has been an excellent platform to discover the participants’ creativity and mental agility in the three categories featured. In today’s digital and data-driven era, Asean’s future prosperity depends on developing the region’s young talents with the necessary skills to leverage on data, digital innovations and disruptive technology.

“The impressive quality of the participants for the inaugural CIMB 3D Conquest bodes well for developing a robust pipeline of digitally-groomed talent to support CIMB’s future growth. My heartiest congratulations to all our winners from across ASEAN, and we look forward to welcoming them to the CIMB family.”

The Regional Champion for the Data Science category was Team Jet Et Al, from Thammasat, Chulalongkorn and Mahidol Universities, Thailand who used alternative sources of data to assess loan applicants’ credit risk, to supplement existing credit risk models. Team Jake from University of Reading, Malaysia – Regional Champion for the Fintech category – was challenged to develop a contactless payment solution using a specific technology; while Team Mamadei from Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Malaysia swept the Regional Champion title in ‘Coding’ where they presented a prototype incorporating Environmental, Social and Governance elements.

The first runner-up teams took home USD5,000 each while the second runner-Up teams walked away with US$3,000 each. Details of the first and second runner-Up teams are as follows:

Data Science:

1st Runner-Up: Team REK, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

2nd Runner-Up: Team E1, National University of Singapore

Fintech:

1st Runner-Up: Team Wholistic, Universitas Kristen Petra, Indonesia

2nd Runner-Up: Team Vest Your Time, Thammasat University, Thailand

Coding:

1st Runner-Up: Team INUvators, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

2nd Runner-Up: Team CIMB Wannabees, Singapore Management University

CIMB 3D Conquest is supported by Cloudera and Fusionex for the Data Science track, SAS Malaysia and Amazon Web Services for FinTech and Oracle Malaysia for Coding. Malaysia Airlines is the Official Airline for the fourth consecutive year in supporting CIMB’s youth development initiatives. CIMB 3D Conquest is also supported by the Ministry of Education Malaysia, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and Disruptive Tech Asean.