BCNETwork News

June 2006

UBC Graduate Student Awarded Top Prize for BCNET's Coolest Applications Contest

Xin Liu, a UBC PhD Computer Science student took first place prize for the 2006 BCNET Coolest Applications contest. Xin’s winning innovative application is entitled: BitVampire: A Cost-Effective Peer-to-Peer On-Demand Media Streaming System.

Showcasing Innovative Applications

This year, BCNET launched the 2006 Coolest Applications Contest with a goal to showcase innovative student applications that use high-performance networks. For the first time, BCNET extended the contest to graduate and undergraduate students.


Adjudication Panel Collaborates for Decision

To judge the contestants, a contest adjudication panel was formed consisting of high tech leaders as well as members of the university community. Each student had 45 minutes to present their application before the panel. After much deliberation,the panel reached a unanimous decision. The judges agreed that Xin Liu, a UBC, PhD Computer Science student was the winning application qualifying for first place prize. Ranking each contestant, they felt that Xin's idea was the most unique application that used high bandwidth networks. Xin took home a cool cash prize of $3,000.

All of the top contenderers were asked to participate and present at the BCNET and Netera Converging Minds Conference. Prizes were awarded from sponsor donated funding for a total of $9500.00.

2nd and 3rd Place Winners

BCNET also awarded prize money to 2nd and 3rd place winners as well as the best undergraduate student. Second place prize went to Anthony Yu, a UBC graduate Computer Science student. Anthony’s application entitled: MOPAR demonstrated a scalable infrastructure for supporting thousands and millions of wireless moving entities to locate and interact among each other without the intervention of a central server. The third place winner was Camilo Rostoker a UBC graduate Computer Science student. Camilo’s application demonstrated an interactive exploration of real-time financial data.

Best Undergraduate Application
For the first time, BCNET created a category for undergraduates.
The best undergraduate application was awarded to a BCIT student, Albert Meyburgh. Albert’s application called GatekKeeper & KeyVault: Secure Communications Layer, demonstrates how creating a secure layer for data to travel can be achieved without having to change any operating systems or software suites.

A Special Thanks to our Coolest Applications Sponsors
Generous sponsorship funding for the contest is provided by industry sponsors. This year's Coolest Applications Sponsors include Sun Microsystems, Industry Canada, SGI, Teraspan, Bell Canada and Juniper Networks.