From November 2015 until June 2016 Titian Foundation (“Titian”) scholarship programme had the opportunity to participate in a series of events called Microsoft YouthSpark. These events are the result of a cooperation between Microsoft Indonesia, the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of University of Gadjah Mada (UGM FISIPOL), Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC), and Loving the Nation’s Children Foundation (Yayasan Cinta Anak Bangsa – “YCAB”). The specific objective of Microsoft YouthSpark is to attract the interest of youngsters to computer science by introducing them to basic programming.

Microsoft was hands-on when teaching about creating applications for educational games – which will hopefully change the perception in society that programming (coding) is a very difficult task. This was also reinforced by the MC who frequently made the participants shout the boisterous cheer “Coding … is no headache. ”

Titian scholarship programme sent 30 students to take part in this training and educational game application contest. Out of 250 participants who signed up to the competition, Titian students made the cut to the Top 60. After going through the perfecting phase of the game in July, Titian ‘The Malware’ team which consists of Guntoro, Andika and Bhimo (Gen 7) successfully passed as Top 10 finalists. With very limited preparation time, The Malware team managed to showcase their work at the exhibition which also served as the final judging day on June 14th.

At the end of the contest, The Malware team were pleased to be among the Top 10 finalists. They were rightly proud and grateful for the valuable opportunity to participate in this contest. “Surely there are lessons from this defeat. Through this contest, I come to realize my own capability and it motivates me to study harder and think more creatively”, said Guntoro. (FD)