Top Young Inventors Are Selected
The judges have spoken. After much deliberation and scrutiny, the winners of this year's Young Inventors Awards have been decided.
The Gold Award goes to Wang Qijie of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, for creating all-fiber optical interleavers and deleavers -- a component of optical networks. (See related article.)
The Silver Award goes to Randall Law of the National University of Singapore for inventing an ultrafast laser nanopatterning device. (See related article.)
YOUNG INVENTORS AWARDS
? The Bronze: Biochip Kit May Mark Cancer Breakthrough
? The Silver: Packing More Data on a Disk Drive
? The Gold: Breakthrough in Fiber-Optic Capacity
While the Bronze Award goes to Liang Xiaojun, Sun Yi and Zhang Xuming, also of Nanyang Technological University, for developing a chip-based cancer-diagnostic kit. (See related article.)
The Asian Wall Street Journal's Young Inventors Awards, now in their fifth year in association with Hewlett-Packard Co., aim to recognize and reward the ingenious thinking, effort and experimentation that lead to the discovery and creation of new ideas. This year, the competition received 87 entries from universities and tertiary institutions in the region. This year's winners reflect the hi-tech nature of this year's nominations: Research disciplines spanned from biotech to computer science.
The task of judging the awards was given to a panel of science and technology experts:
Jeffrey Goh, CEO, Lightspeed Technologies Pte. Ltd. (Singapore); Paul Herrling, Head of Corporate Research, Novartis International AG (Switzerland); Thomas Hinderling, CEO, Swiss Center for Electronics & Microtechnology (Switzerland); Feng-Hsiung Hsu, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research Asia (China); Paul Saffo, Director, Institute for the Future (U.S.); Stephen Squires, VP & Chief Science Officer, Hewlett-Packard Co. (U.S.) and Robert Yung, CTO, Enterprise Processors, Enterprise Products Group, Intel Corp. (U.S.).
The judging process was rigorous, as 12 finalists were selected from the original 87 entries. The entries were studied by the judges and awarded points according to four criteria:
? Originality or creativity of the invention and/or whether it greatly improves on past scientific or technological processes or thinking.
? Potential impact -- economic, environmental or societal.
? Practicality or feasibility of the invention to be realistically developed to a point where it can have an impact.
? Completeness of entry: Can they clearly explain their invention and provide supporting material?
The numbers were then crunched using z-scoring, a mathematical system that basically flattens out the scores in the various fields to eliminate distortions that may arise from the differing standards of scoring among the judges.
The 12 highest-scoring entries emerged as finalists and were profiled Jan 21. These went through to a second round of judging and re-scoring. The three highest-scoring finalists were the overall winners. They will receive an all-expenses paid trip to H-P Labs in Palo Alto, California, and H-P computer equipment.
In addition, The Asian Wall Street Journal will contribute cash prizes to the winners' universities.
中国学生获“亚太地区青年发明奖”金、铜奖
第五届亚太地区青年发明奖颁奖仪式于周二晚间举行，来自新加坡院校的学生横扫金银铜奖项。其中金奖和铜奖分别由就读于新加坡的中国大陆籍学生获得。本届青年发明奖由《亚洲华尔街日报》和惠普公司共同举办，吸引了亚太地区87个专案参选。
第五届亚太地区青年发明奖的金奖得主是新加坡南洋理工大学的学生王歧捷，他发现了制造低成本光梳状分波器/光梳状合波器的简单方法。他的发明使得光纤网能够传输更多资料，而无需为客户增加成本。这项发明在网路之外的其他领域也有诸多应用。例如，它可被用于光的超灵敏感测器来测量距离。今年25岁的王歧捷来自中国辽宁省丹东市，在中国科技大学提前一年完成本科学位后，获得赴新加坡南洋理工大学攻读博士学位的奖学金，目前在该校的电气及电子工程专业研究光通信领域。
银奖得主是新加坡国立大学的罗耀章( Randall Law)，他发明了超高速镭射纳米图形设备。该项发明今后可被用于晶片制造领域，在更小的晶片上排列更多的积体电路，或被用于微型设备的制造。
本届青年发明奖铜奖授予了新加坡南洋理工大学的梁晓军、孙艺和张需明。他们发明了一种运用晶片技术制成的可快速诊断癌症的仪器。该项价格合理、便于使用的仪器能在癌症最早期就作出诊断，远远早于人体表现出癌症病征。这三名中国大陆籍的学生分别来自福建省、山东省和安徽省，现均为南洋理工大学电气及电子工程专 业博士生。
“青年发明奖旨在承认并表彰那些带来新思想和新发现的创造性思维、不懈的努力，以及不间断的科学试验。”《亚洲华尔街日报》主编蔡翔祁先生 ( Reginald Chua) 说，“在今年的入围专案和最终获奖作品中，我们无疑在这些影响生活的发明创造中看到了这一切。”
“在过去的5年中，惠普公司非常荣幸能够支持青年发明奖。这项资助与我们的公司理念非常一致，那就是相信创新的力量能够成就伟大的事情，并为社会做出贡献。”惠普公司亚太区及日本品牌市场部副总裁冯少琼 (Cecilia Pang )说，“自从65年前惠普公司创立以来，创新精神就根植于企业的基因中，并还将继续保持下去。事实上，在2004年全美十家获得专利最多的企业排名中，惠普公司名列第四。青年发明奖不仅代表了专业领域对学生的创新及其企业家精神的认可，还意味著展示学生们的研究成果，并鼓励他们追求理想、改变世界。”
本届青年发明奖的金银铜奖得主获得了惠普公司提供的前往美国加州帕洛阿托惠普实验室的免费旅行，以及电脑设备。此外，《亚洲华尔街日报》还向获奖者的所属院校提供了现金奖励。
