Four students from the State University of Ilocos Norte won international awards in a five-minute virtual research promotion seminar and lecture organized by the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok, Thailand.

According to Danial Tapaoan, Information Officer of Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU), in the competition held from October 29th to 30th, MMSU students defeated 126 contestants from 20 universities in 10 countries.

He said that MMSU participated in a two-day seminar and lecture at the invitation of AIT, and sent 32 students to participate in the competition through the university’s external contacts and partner council and the college’s planning and development coordinator.

He pointed out that the AIT special degree program organizes the above competition to provide students with a platform for presenting research ideas and inspiring them to innovate.

Tapaoan added that this is in line with AIT's efforts to strengthen partnerships with other universities around the world.

The four MMSU students from different departments are senior students Christian Realin (Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering), Kendrick Cyrus Acidera (Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering), Manisha Jeanette Arellano (Bachelor of Information Technology) and Julianne Marie Albano (Bachelor of Tourism Management) . They became the only winners in various competition categories.

Under the engineering technology category, Realin presented his research topic "sign language to text to speech applications", and under the healthy environment category, Acidera's entry was about "development of air filtration equipment integrated with indoor air quality monitoring systems."

Under the food technology and agriculture category, Arellano’s research topic is "PigGrow app: developing a mobile app for small pig farmers", while under the management category, Albano’s research result is "Integrating Covid-19 sensors with automatic people counters" "Combined with surveillance" system of public buildings, commercial establishments and airports. "

The university official said that students must take a one-day instructional course to prepare for their research activities and classify them according to their educational background.