Pixels team wins fifth WebCup competition |07 May 2018
● Seychelles to host regional final
Team Pixels is the winner of this year’s fifth Seychelles WebCup competition, while team Active Group is the runner-up.
Only two teams took part in this year’s WebCup competition which started at noon on Saturday and ended at noon yesterday at the Care House.
The two teams received their prizes soon after members of the jury had interacted with the team members in turn on their creations and came up with a decision.
The theme for this year’s web page design was ‘Zombie’. The teams had to develop a web page within 24 hours (non-stop) on the chosen theme which was kept secret until the start of the competition.
Among the prizes that members of the winning team received were Cable & Wireless i5 smart phones, Amber three-month internet subscription package courtesy of Intelvision and crystal shields from the department of information communications technology (DICT).
The runner-up team, who also received the most likes on Facebook at the end of the competition, got smart phones, gift packs and gift vouchers. Both teams also received a certificate of participation from the Web Cup Association and Seychelles Web Cup.
The wining team will also represent Seychelles in the grand final which will be hosted by Seychelles in November if all goes according to plan, it has been announced.
The principal secretary for DICT, Benjamin Choppy who officially launched the competition on Saturday morning, handed the winners with their prizes yesterday afternoon in the presence of representatives of different sponsors and jury members from UniSey, Intelvision, Cable & Wireless, DICT and Maven.
The WebCup is an annual event that was first introduced in 2010 by the Web Cup Association based in Reunion Island, with the aim of promoting information communications technology (ICT) around a fun and educational event; with those taking part working as individuals or in teams of not more than four members. The competition was taking place simultaneously in Reunion, Mauritius, Seychelles, Comoros, Mayotte, Rodrigues, Madagascar and for the very first time in Burkina Faso.
This year’s preliminary round competition was organised by SEY-IX (Seychelles Internet Exchange Point Association) in collaboration with the Web Cup Association of Reunion.
Gilbert Lebon, chairman of SEY-IX expressed heartfelt gratitude to the loyal sponsors and the web enthusiasts who though few this year have been keen and shown great excitement.
He expressed the hope that as the grand final is being organised here in Seychelles at the end of the year, with the support of sponsors, internet service providers and all interested parties we will be able to give more exposure to the competition which will motivate more enthusiasts so that next year more teams will come forward to take part.
“I would like to see the competition continue to grow and attract more participation from young web enthusiasts, students,” said Mr Lebon who added that despite the low participation this year he is encouraged that there are new faces on both teams.
Expressing his joy at winning, Tharindu Madushanka, the team leader of Pixels who took part in a previous competition, said his team’s success is based on its understanding of the theme.
“As a team we focused on the positive side and people’s behaviour after the ‘zombie attack’ which was how to bring people’s lives to normal in a situation where there was no money to trade goods and services,” he said.
He noted that with past experience they more or less knew what the jury would be looking for.
For Delroy Finesse, team leader of Active Group, the experience was great but he admitted that it took his team some time to understand the theme well.
“But I am happy we brought a lot of innovative aspects in our creation and we are happy with what we achieved,” said Mr Finesse, but he admitted that even though he has experience taking part in the competition, each time the theme is more challenging.