UP students get award from father of Java
By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 18:45:00 05/12/2008
Filed Under: Awards and Prizes, Good news, Software, Open source software, Computing & Information Technology
MANILA, Philippines--A group of computer science students from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City were the recipients of an award given out by James Gosling, the father of Java, to innovative software developers.
The Filipino team who developed the Expert Poisoning System (ESP) was among many teams worldwide that received the prestigious award.
"It is really a great honor that Mr. James Gosling handpicked us as one of the winners of the Duke's Choice Awards and also, the fact that we are the first Filipinos to have won this award really made it a special feeling. Of course, we are happy and surprised because we didn't expect it and when we were doing this project, it is never our intention to join this contest," said Jaymee Gatapia, a fourth-year computer science student and member of the UP Judo varsity team, in an e-mail interview.
Gatapia shared this award with fellow computer science students Diana Bandojo and Reggie Niccolo Santos who comprised the Filipino team Jaredy.
With guidance and encouragement from their advisers, Team Jaredy developed a rule-based clinical decision support system for the diagnosis and management of poisoning cases.
The Java application allows doctors or health professionals to find out if symptoms they have observed in their patients indicate poisoning. The application then suggests corresponding procedures and antidotes.
"At first, I was excited to deliver this good news to my parents to make them happy and proud. But upon passing through some articles or blog entries in the Internet, I've realized that this award is not only for our team but also for the Filipinos and I think this award could bring more encouragements and inspiration to our fellow countrymen," said Bandojo who was once a student of the UP College of Arts and Letters.
"We know that many big companies prefer proprietary technologies over open source technologies. Our project was successfully built using open source technologies. So I think this award is also one project that the open source community could be proud of," she added.
UP professor Prospero Naval said the ESP project is currently undergoing testing and will be deployed soon at the National Telehealth Center with help from Dr. Alvin Marcelo.
"We want ESP to be accessible even from the remotest places for free, if possible, and for this reason ESP has to remain open source as well," Naval said when asked about the commercial prospects of the application.
Naval said the use open source software proved crucial for the project since the team was operating with almost no budget for software development.
The availability of a locally published book written by Filipino toxicologists Dr. Lynn Panganiban and Dr. Nelia Cortes-Maramba provided the basis of the ESP software, the UP professor added.
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