Chan Chi-bun has always had an eye for design and this time it has won him the South China Morning Post 's Student Programmer award. The 18-year-old Form Seven student at Kowloon Technical College won the Post 's 1999 award and picked up a 'booty' of top prizes. Chi-bun wrote his first programme five years ago, as a Form Two student, when he took part in a computer-assisted learning module design competition. He wrote the program with Basic, an interactive music composer program, and won the first prize. The following year he helped his school develop two sets of revision software for the Chinese history module. In 1998, he won the overall championship and the best programmer award in the 14th Netvigator Hong Kong Joint School Electronics and Computer Exhibition. Last year, he won the most outstanding teaching tool award in computer-assisted learning with a mathematics teaching software aimed at junior secondary school students. Aside from programming, Chi-bun is also fascinated with computer graphics. Last year, he was a winner in the creative computer graphic section of the Hong Kong Schools IT festival. Chi-bun says he gets a buzz out of people using his programs. 'I'm happy when people find my programs useful,' he said. He hopes to work in computer animation in the future. 'I have loved drawing since I was a child - but now I don't use a pencil, I use my computer,' he said. His dream is to work on a world class computer animation production, such as Toy Story. 'Hong Kong has a favourable environment to produce a high quality work,' he said. The panel of judges was made up of Dr Brian Mak Kan-wing, assistant professor of the Department of Computer Science at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Tang Kin-hung, senior inspector (computer education) of the Advisory Inspectorate Division of the Education Department. Dr Mak said he was very impressed with Chi-bun's work. He praised the teenager as a master of both programming and multi- media. 'Chi-bun is not only good at programming, but he is also devoted to graphics. The appropriate pictures make his work very presentable,' Dr Mak said. The judging criteria included depth of knowledge - of both software and hardware - as well as the ability to present material in an attractive, practical and user-friendly way. Mr Tang said he was impressed with candidates' work and that he appreciated the effort the students had made. 'Like the winner and the runner-up, Yip Yee-shing, they are contributing to the community,' Mr Tang said. Chi-bun won a $20,000 Citibank scholarship, two British Airways return tickets to Manila, a one-year free Netvigator dial- up account, and a Canon scanner. His school will receive two scanners and a free Internet account for the same period. Runner-up Yee-shing from SKH Bishop Mok Sau Tseng Secondary School will get a $5,000 Citibank scholarship.
