Pinoy Students to represent PH

Pinoy students to represent in a student conference in Hong Kong

Two groups from the University of the Philippines (UP) have been selected as finalists in the upcoming international educational event by leading secure content and threat management solutions developer Kaspersky Lab.

Nineteen-year-old Ranyel Bryan Maliwanag and 21-year old Joshua Arvin Lat will represent the Philippines at the Kaspersky Lab International Student Conference Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa Cup 2012, an annual event that brings together students and young professionals in a collaborative environment to present and discuss issues relating to cybercrime.

The conference will be held from March 14 to 16 at the City University of Hong Kong. Both Maliwanag and Lat are from the UP Department of Computer Science (UP-DCS) Diliman Campus.

Maliwanag and his team, composed of Mariah Strella Indrinal and Marynyriene Silvestre, created an application that uses voice recognition. Their research title is “Vox-Grid: A Mobile Voice Verification System.”

Meanwhile, Lat and his partners Kevin Atienza and Rod Xavier Bondoc wrote a research paper entitled “SOUL System: Secure Online USB Login System.”

This is the first time that the Philippines will be joining the annual conference, with the theme of “IT Security for the Next Generation”. They will be vying for cash prizes ranging from US$750 up to US$1,500.

A total of 52 papers were submitted to this year’s conference, five of which were from the Philippines. In Southeast Asia, only Malaysia and the Philippines made it to the Asia Pacific & MEA Cup 2012.

Kaspersky Lab Asia Pacific Managing Director Harry Cheung is very pleased that students from the Asia Pacific region are becoming more active participants in the company’s goal of involving the young minds in battling cybercrime through this conference.

City University of Hong Kong

“I congratulate all the lucky participants to the Asia Pacific and MEA Cup this year! This conference is a very good platform for our young, brilliant minds from the Asia Pacific region to cultivate their knowledge in understanding Internet security and eventually contribute innovative ways to improve cyber security,” Cheung said.

“I hope to see more of them join and really make the cut in the international round,” Cheung said.   

All submitted research papers had been evaluated by the education programs committee, which is made up of professors from the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Australia as well as key members of Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) Michael Molsner, Head of Research Center in Japan and Stefan Tanase, Senior Security Researcher based in Romania.

At Kaspersky Lab Asia Pacific & MEA Cup 2012, the selected 15 research papers will be evaluated again through presentation and questions of the program committee members. Each student will be allocated 10 minutes presentation and five minutes Q&A by the program committee members.

Selection will be based on scientific and methodological level of work, the social importance of the topic presented, presentation skills & design, ability to answer queries from the panel, as well as practical and innovation value.

Three research papers will be selected in this round which will participate in the 2012 Kaspersky International Cup to be held at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands on May 11-13, 2012.

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