American University Phnom Penh students win the edotco Infrastructure Design Competition 2021 with sustainable and innovative tower design
Taking home prize money USD2500, students of winning design use natural resources which is more endurant, environmentally friendly and cost-effective
edotco Group (edotco), the region’s leading telecommunications infrastructure services company, today announced the winners of the edotco Infrastructure Design Competition 2021, which attracted more than twenty teams from all over Asia region. With the theme “Infrastructure for Tomorrow: Designing the Future”, the competition called for university students to design what they think are the next generation communication towers.
The ninety-day challenge was organised in collaboration with the University Community Transformation Centre under Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (‘UCTC-UKM’), and opened to Year 3, Year 4, and postgraduate Engineering students in Malaysia, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Japan, Korea, and China. The design challenge comes with real-world implications where the students’ design proposals could potentially be deployed all over the Asia region.
Five teams were selected for the final pitching session held virtually yesterday. The top three winners took home prize money of USD2500, USD1500 and USD1000, respectively.
Winners list:
1st place – American University Phnom Penh (AUPP), Cambodia
2nd place – University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
3rd place – Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh
Speaking on behalf of his team, Usphea Sophaneth, team lead from AUPP said, “It had been a wonderful journey, and it was certainly rewarding to win the competition. The past 90 days had been gruelling and challenging, with many hours spent doing research and brainstorming to develop an innovative and sustainable design. Thank you to everyone who supported our team, especially to our University, for the opportunity to study and become better civil engineers. Thank you to edotco for organising the competition, and we hope our winning design will be an inspiration to others.”
A panel of judges from edotco and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia evaluated the submissions based on innovation, creativity, environmental friendliness, and execution. Emphasis on green engineering is important in the design as it will help develop a healthy environment and an enriched community in the areas surrounding the tower sites.
“As a regional tower company, we acknowledge the importance of nurturing innovation and cultivating the importance of sustainability amongst the youth. Through this competition, we hope to provide aspiring youths across Asia with a platform to engage with experienced leaders, gain industry knowledge and attain technology exposure while applying their skills to create innovative solutions. I
was overall impressed with all the designs submitted and hope the competition encourages our youth to continuously embed an innovative thinking mindset in whatever path they wish to endeavour in the future. Congratulations to the winning team and all the participants,” said Adlan Tajudin, Chief Executive Officer of edotco Group.
This competition is edotco’s ongoing efforts to foster a future-ready workforce capable of building next-generation technologies for the telecommunication industry. The effort is also aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 4 to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities.
