Friday, March 29, 2024

Cebu students named grand champs of Accenture’s ‘Program The Future’ competition

A team of four students from the University of San Carlos (USC) in Cebu City was named the grand champion of “Program The Future (PTF): The Accenture Technology Campus Challenge 2019” at the awarding ceremony held recently at the Ascott Hotel in Bonifacio Global City.

USC’s The Visionaries team comprised of Robert Espina, Wincent Jarell Tan, Alejandro Cansancio, and Jerico James Gantuangco topped this year’s contest

PTF is an annual competition that aims to spark innovation among Filipino college students from various schools in the country. With this year’s theme, “Industry + Technology = Better Place,” the competition urged the students to design and build solutions for industries to help make a positive impact in society. 

USC’s The Visionaries team, comprised of Robert Espina, Wincent Jarell Tan, Alejandro Cansancio, and Jerico James Gantuangco, came up with Parasight. It’s an application that aims to help medical technologists quickly detect amoebiasis through the use of region-based convolutional neural networks (RCNN) to spot the presence of entamoeba in microscopic slides. Parasight improves the accuracy and speed of identification.

The Visionaries were among the 53 teams from 18 colleges and universities in the country who competed in the latest PTF tilt. They are one of two teams from the Queen City of the South.

Espina (project manager): It’s really a humbling experience. Honestly, as a team, we were always focused on having a mindset that is learning-oriented. We [made it a point] to push for quality. So, to get acknowledgement for the efforts we’ve done so far is really a humbling experience and we’re happy about the award.

Newsbytes.PH: Why did you specifically choose this project? Is it something that you have always been interested in?

Espina: We really wanted to do a project that contributed to the community. We talked to a lot of friends and colleagues to find out what problems they were experiencing. One of those we approached was my sister. 

My sister is a registered medical technologist. She saw a problem that technology enthusiasts could solve. We thought that this was a problem we could tackle to help uplift the health care standard in the country.

Newsbytes.PH: If you were asked for one word to describe your PTF journey what would it be? 

Espina: It’s humbling.

Tan: It’s amazing.

Cansancio: It’s a great experience for me.

Gantuangco: It’s splendid.

According to Ambe Tierro, Accenture’s Advanced Technology Centers in the Philippines Lead and Global AI Capability and Delivery Lead, Accenture hopes that the PTF experience has helped enrich the students’ knowledge of technology as well as their understanding of how it can truly impact the way we work and live in a positive way. 

For Accenture in the Philippines, Program the Future has been one of the platforms where its pool of volunteer employees and experts are able to help contribute in equipping future workforce with necessary skills to succeed in the digital age through mentoring sessions. Through these sessions, students are able to gain first-hand knowledge and insights in the areas such as data analytics, AI, among other technologies that are shaping today’s businesses and societies.

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