M'sian Teams Shine With Six Awards At ASEAN GeoAI Fusion 2026
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 22 (Bernama) -- Malaysian teams won six awards at the ASEAN GeoAI Fusion 2026, with local team Grabber crowned overall champions, highlighting the country's capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI) and geospatial technology.
At the closing ceremony today, Grabber bagged the top award, followed by Starlink and Snack Overflow in second and third place, respectively. Myanmar's Team Geovisionaries and Brunei's Kandila rounded out the top five.
Besides the overall championship, Grabber won the ASEAN Best GeoAI Innovation award, while AI Slop Final Boss won ASEAN Best Sustainable Development Impact, and Starlink took home ASEAN Best Spatial Intelligence.
Deputy Communications Minister Teo Nie Ching said ASEAN GeoAI Fusion 2026 serves as a talent development platform, gathering young minds across ASEAN to create AI Geospatial (GeoAI) solutions.
"This is a talent development programme. We want to gather talent from across the ASEAN region and give them space to develop their ideas and projects, hoping these proposed solutions will create a lasting impact on the industry," she said after officiating the closing ceremony here today.
Teo said the inaugural event, organised by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), attracted 1,112 participants from 11 ASEAN member states, with university students accounting for 72 per cent of the total.
She added that MCMC plans to propose to the ASEAN Secretariat that ASEAN GeoAI Fusion be made an annual or biennial event.
"We will discuss this with the ASEAN Secretariat. If they agree to adopt the programme, we have no issue with it becoming an official ASEAN event hosted by other member states in future," she said.
Winning team Grabber, comprising Universiti Malaya (UM) Computer Science student Chin Jun Quan, 22, and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) student Wong Yong Xi, 23, developed Segrit3D, which integrates 3D modelling, geospatial data, and AI to improve 5G network planning.
Chin said the project focuses on enhancing telecommunications coverage in rural areas across ASEAN, where connectivity gaps remain a challenge.
“For example, in Indonesia, there are still around 2,500 villages without any connectivity at all. We want to use AI combined with 3D modelling data to help solve these problems, such as finding the best locations for cell sites, smart poles and other network infrastructure,” he told the media.
The team took home two trophies and cash prizes, comprising the USD5,000 grand prize and a USD500 category award.
Meanwhile, third-placed team Snack Overflow, comprising UM students, developed a solution using 3D mapping to improve telecommunications network planning by factoring in physical obstacles, such as building heights and vegetation, that affect signal coverage.
Team member Teh Xu Zhe, 20, said the solution could potentially save telecommunications operators about RM200 million annually by enabling better assessment of tower utilisation and site selection for new infrastructure.
"The real world isn't flat. There are many physical factors we need to consider, such as building height and vegetation. We found that the difference between using a 2D map and a 3D map can have a very big impact," he said.
He said the solution took two to three months to develop, supported by mentorship from geospatial industry experts who helped the team refine their project.
Launched in July, ASEAN GeoAI Fusion 2026 featured two bootcamps to enhance participants' GeoAI knowledge, followed by a virtual hackathon in August and the physical hackathon in Kuala Lumpur from Sept 19 to 22.
-- BERNAMA
