CSE Graduates CHEUNG Ka Chun, WONG Chun Yim, and YUEN Siu Hung Awarded Prize for Innovative Spirit in the Lenovo Innovative Design Competition 2011

CSE Graduates CHEUNG Ka Chun, WONG Chun Yim, and YUEN Siu Hung have been awarded Prize for Innovative Spirit in the Lenovo Innovative Design Competition 2011 with their Undergraduate Final Year Project "Where To- A Collaborative Android App Providing an Online Google Map with Audible Cantonese Pronunciations for Expats and Tourists in Hong Kong". The team was supervised by Prof Jogesh Muppala.

The competition aims to encourage local university students & researchers to use intelligent technologies to improve everyday life.

The names of locations in Hong Kong are difficult for tourists to pronounce and remember. Tourists often have trouble communicating with local citizens. The project is an android phone application. Users can select the text language: English, Traditional Chinese or Simplified Chinese. When users tap on a location on the Google maps of Hong Kong, the system displays the address name in the three languages. They can choose to hear the pronunciation in the language chosen. The system utilizes a built in Android text-to-speech (TTS) engine for English, an open source TTS engine for Putonghua, and a custom-made TTS engine for Cantonese. The system also links to a website called Expat/ Tourist Sharing Board, which is also created by the team for users to find additional information. The history of places tapped by the user is also available.