Filipino wins in Kaspersky Lab contest

MANILA, Philippines – A student from the University of the Philippines Diliman wowed the judges of Kaspersky Lab’s international youth competition, “Cyber Security for the Next Generation (CSNG) 2013” held in London last June.

Ivan Dominic Baguio, a Computer Science student, survived the competition’s regional heat for Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Baguio ended up as one of 14 finalists for his research paper on on-the-fly encryption for Android devices. (Editor’s Note: We earlier said that Baguio has already graduated. We regret the error.)

One of the main events of the competition involved persuading a panel of experts to invest in the finalists’ respective projects. According to Susannah Woolmer, Baguio went on to win that particular event by “impressing the judging panel with the poised delivery of his presentation.”

This is the second time Filipino students have distinguished themselves in Kaspersky Lab’s competition. In 2012, Joshua Arvin Lat, Rod Bondoc, and Kevin Atienza from the University of the Philippines Diliman won first place for their research paper on a secure online USB login system.

The prestigious competition, hosted by developer of software security products, Kaspersky Lab, annually brings together innovative students from all over the world in a two-day conference that includes talks and presentations on IT security, meetings with IT industry experts, keynotes, challenges, and showcases of the finalists’ research.

Finalists for this year’s competition came from Asia, South America, the US, South Africa, Europe, and Russia. They converged at Royal Holloway, University of London on June 25 and 26.

The winners were announced over a gala dinner on the last night of the conference. Firman Azhari from the Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia was declared overall winner for his research on the protection of e-payment and e-identity data.

Second was Dusan Repel from the of Plymouth University, UK, and third was Iwan Gulenko from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. – with a report from Andie Reyes/ Rappler.com