PHOTO -   (from left) Ng Wan Peng, COO of MDeC; and Mohd Fazlin Shah Mohd Salleh, president and managing director of Alcatel-Lucent Malaysia.



French communications giant Alcatel-Lucent hopes to encourage Malaysians to develop compelling Internet content with the launch of its application development contest, Geek-the-Genius.

Children between the ages of five and 12 years are encouraged to develop Facebook applications that contain edutainment elements, said Alcatel-Lucent Malaysia president & managing director, Mohd Fazlin Shah Mohd Salleh. "The Geek-the-Genius contest is open to all eligible Malaysians and will run for a period of 12 weeks -- from 27 April to 20 July 2012."

"As a provider of the building blocks and enabling technologies for broadband connectivity in the country, Alcatel-Lucent Malaysia hopes the Geek-to-Genius contest will contribute towards the development of a robust Internet ecosystem which is in line with the government's National Broadband Agenda," said Mohd Fazlin.

"According to the Google Ad Planner, 64.7 percent of Malaysians use the Internet and out of which 75.5 percent of them are active on Facebook. It is important to have programmes such as this to drive the availability of relevant and compelling local content on Facebook suited for local consumption," said government ICT agency Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) chief operating officer, Ng Wan Peng, during the official launch of the contest.

"Alcatel-Lucent's effort is an example of a privately-led initiative to help boost the creation of more local content in Malaysia," said Ng. "The Geek-the-Genius contest represents an ideal platform for Malaysians to showcase their creativity and talent in creating simple, yet interactive applications that appeal to children."

The Facebook applications submitted by participants will be shortlisted and judged based on several criteria. These include creativity level, idea originality, level of educational content, user experience, and suitability and relevance to the target audience. Several members from the media, creative content and ICT industries have been invited to sit on the Geek-the-Genius judging panel with Alcatel-Lucent's Mohd Fazlin.

For more details about the Geek-the-Genius contest, please go to www.geekthegenius.com and www.facebook.com/geekthegenius.

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