A team of Indonesian students from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) has won the Southeast Asia Regional leg of the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2017 by creating a fake news detector dubbed Hoax Analyzer.
Through a web-based app, which allows users to identify fake news published by a particular information source, team CIMOL hopes to help netizens screen for hoaxes and verify news sources prior to spreading them, reported tempo.co.
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The competition also named team HeartSound from Singapore and team Opticode from the Philippines as runners-up. The former created a smart gadget called S3 that can function as both a stethoscope and electrocardiography instrument, while the latter made a virtual assistant mobile app for blind people.
As regional winners, the three teams will get to compete in the Imagine Cup World Finals in Seattle, United States, in July. The final leg will see 50 university students from around the globe strive to win the grand prize US$100,000 and an opportunity to be guided by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. (vod/kes)