Kong Ji Yu
TAR UMT student Kong Ji Yu (pic above) was over the moon after he was named one of the winners of the prestigious Swift Student Challenge 2026.
Hosted by global tech giant Apple, Swift Student Challenge is a global coding competition that invites students to showcase their skills on Apple's Swift programming language, with emphasis on submissions that demonstrate excellence in innovation, creativity, social impact, or inclusivity.
The 2026 edition saw 350 winners selected from 37 countries worldwide.
Among them is Ji Yu, who developed a prototype called ‘LearnBIM’, an interactive learning platform that allows users to learn Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia (BIM) in an engaging and practical way by leveraging real-time camera feedback to provide on-the-spot guidance when practising sign language.
LearnBIM uses real-time camera feedback to provide on-the-spot guidance when practising BIM sign language.
“This is a very meaningful moment for me because it is my first time receiving a global award. I did not expect to be selected as one of the winners as LearnBIM is still a very early prototype, but I am very grateful that my work was recognised by the judging panel. This gives me a lot of confidence and encouragement to continue building technology that can help people in meaningful ways,” said the former SMJK Chung Hwa Klang student.
The concept behind LearnBIM stemmed from Ji Yu’s encounter with sign language instructional videos he watched on the Internet.
“I realised that there are very limited online learning materials for BIM, and since it is a passive learning method, there is no instructor to teach viewers to sign correctly in real time. This got me thinking on how to develop a tool to enhance this learning process, and LearnBIM was born,” the Bachelor in Software Engineering (Hons) student explained.
