BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

THE Crown Prince Innovative Products and Technological Advancement (CIPTA) Innovation Month aims to foster innovation among young people, as well as to let members of the public know of the facilities available for local budding inventors.

Secretariat of CIPTA Awards Hjh Mariam Hj Abdul Rahman said this on the sidelines of a ‘Technology Challenge’ event that took place at the Institut Teknologi Brunei (ITB) multipurpose hall yesterday.

Hjh Mariam told The Brunei Times that all the activities which were held in conjunction with the CIPTA Innovation Month – held to commemorate the awards’ tenth anniversary – had to do with innovation and creativity.

“His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam has expressed his wishes to see more innovation among our citizens in his previous titah especially with Wawasan 2035 (Vision 2035) approaching. We are hoping that such activities will contribute towards that,” she explained.

Activities will include a talk and clinic by the Brunei Economic Development Board (BEDB) and Brunei Intellectual Property Office (BruIPO) set to take place tomorrow at ITB’s Pearl building.

The talk and clinic is open to all members of the public,

“We want to let the people of Brunei – especially those who are creative and innovative, who have ambitions to invent something - know that there are things they can do to help them further their ambitions.

“Some people may not know this and think there’s no help for them. But they are not alone. We would like to hopefully show them there are pathways and facilities to aid them,” Hjh Mariam added.

Some 30 participants of various ages took part in yesterday’s Technology Challenge, which pitted teams against each other to build boats and rafts capable of holding various weights.

They also built functional drag race cars out of recyclable materials such as plastic bottles and cardboard boxes.

Albert Cheng, science communicator at the Oil and Gas Discovery Centre (OGDC) cum co-facilitator of the challenge, said the building activities were to promote innovative thinking among participants.

“They have to basically come up with whatever they can to make a raft that can float when weights are added to it, according to the limits we’ve set such as the maximum number of items they can use to build their rafts.

“Hopefully, through doing so, they will be more influenced or inspired to go further in engineering and in coming up with solutions,” Cheng said.

Hafiz Yazid, a first year networking engineering student at ITB found the activity interesting, calling it “fun and inspiring”.

“It’s pretty different from what I’m actually studying but it’s still good, it reminds me of my high school days and our Physics classes back then,” Hafiz said.

CIPTA Innovation Month will end on April 14.

The Brunei Times