CodeMaven 2.0 Girls2Code, jointly organized by the School of Computer Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (CS USM) and Telebort, follows a LAUNCH, CODE and JAM model to encourage young girls (7 - 12 years old) to learn coding and become technology creators. Our CodeMaven community program structure starts with a virtual launch (LAUNCH), followed by a series of coding workshops (CODE), and ends with a coding challenge (JAM). Currently in our third installment after the initiation of the program in 2019, CodeMaven 2.0 was held in conjunction with the International Girls in ICT Day 2023. CodeMaven 2.0 focused on the theme of creative computing (i.e., creating interactive and dynamic computing media) using Scratch. The activities were designed to encourage students to learn basic coding concepts through the creation of animated stories.

The events in CodeMaven 2.0 encompassed:

• CodeMaven 2.0 Launch Day: 28 April 2023
• 4 CodeBytes (asynchronous mini coding workshops): 28 April – 1 May 2023 § CodeByte 2.1: Bringing Cartoons to Life: Animate Your Own Story § CodeByte 2.2: Chatty Creatures: How to Make Your Cartoon Animals Talk § CodeByte 2.3: Secret Messages and Surprises: Passing Notes and Triggering Fun § CodeByte 2.4: Lights, Music, Action: Adding Special Effects to Your Cartoon
• Code Jam (F2F coding challenge): 6 May 2023

We had a total of 142 girls (aged between 7 - 12 years old) registered for the program and 130 girls joined us on the Virtual Launch Day through the zoom online platform. To make female ICT role models more visible to girls, we invited speakers, Ida Mok (co-founder and president of Women in Blockchain Asia) and Sophie Azlan (award-winning game developer), to share their inspiring ICT career stories during our virtual launch. In addition, CodeMaven 2.0 also involved 14 CodeSysters, female university student volunteers, who played the role as mentors in coaching the girls

In our final F2F Code Jam, a total of 18 girls gathered at Makerspace@USM to put their coding skills to the ultimate test and compete in an animation coding hackathon. The top five most creative animations were selected as winners by a panel of judges from Intel STEM team (Mr. Ong Soon Ee and Miss Teo Sje Yin) and USM (Dr. Wong Li Pei, Dr. Nasuha Lee Abdullah, Dr. Syaheerah Lebai Lufti and Dr. Rosni Abdullah). Prizes for the winners were sponsored by Telebort and CS USM. All thanks to the unwavering support of our sponsors, partners, parents and the community, CodeMaven 2.0 is a step closer towards cultivating interest and creating greater exposure among young girls in coding and STEM.

Social Media Channels

• Website: https://www.telebort.com/codemaven
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/codemaven.usm/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codemaven.usm/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAuwBrVFDgvzhGRcF8ez37A

Tahniah kepada barisan kepimpinan baharu Pusat Mobiliti dan Kolaborasi Antarabangsa (IMCC). Dr. Syaheerah daripada Pusat Pengajian Sains Komputer telah dilantik sebagai Timbalan Pengarah Kolaborasi Antarangbangsa. Tahniah dan syabas diucapkan.

Big Congratulations to Dr. Mohd Nadhir Ab. Wahab on winning the Gold Medal at the 3rd International Invention, Innovation & Technology Exhibition, ITEX Malaysia.

Congratulations to Mr Chew You Shen, School of Computer Sciences, Undergraduate Year 4
for being the recipient of GOLD MEDAL AWARD at the
International Invention, Innovation and Design Competition 2023 (i3DC 2023)

The competition organized by Kolej Vokasional Tanah Merah, DIGIT360, Universiti Teknologi MARA Kelantan Branch, in collaboration with Bahagian Pendidikan dan Latihan Teknikal Vokasional and Zon Kelantan – Zon Terengganu (KELTER) was an online international level competition that aimed to showcase investable social innovations that would benefit the society and impact the community and nation. This year’s theme is “Invention, Innovation & Design for Education Sustainability”.
(https://i3dc.my)

A total of 701 projects from Malaysia and Indonesia competed in this event. Some notable universities that has participated in this event includes UM, USM, UPNM, UTeM, and UKM.
https://www.facebook.com/i3dcmalaysia

Mr Chew You Shen has submitted a presentation of his Final Year Project (FYP) titled MYPOLITICS - AI Powered Web Application that Analyzes Political Sentiment in Malaysia on Twitter, under the supervision of Dr Jasy Liew Suet Yan, Senior Computer Sciences, USM.

The project is web application that can retrieve Malay tweets related to Malaysia politics and politicians from Twitter, uncover relevant topics automatically and its corresponding keywords from Malay tweets, create sentiment and emotion detection models based on Malay tweets and display visualized political insights. Two AI algorithms has been implemented within the project, which are Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Neural Networks and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) algorithm.
https://booth.i3dc.my/x-video-exhibition.php?xid=227&secID=f6fa40383d46ca5136f18d356679f40a

https://bit.ly/i3dc2023-booth

Mr Chew You Shen won the Gold Medal in the University/Vocational College Category.