Cytron Technologies Partners with MDEC to Bring Robotics and Coding to the Masses
Cytron Technologies, a Penang-based company that designs and manufactures educational robotic kits, launched its latest product (rero:micro robot), and officially kickstarted its outreach campaign to bring robotics and coding to the masses. This outreach campaign is a joint effort between Cytron and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) in support of #mydigitalmaker movement, which aims to transform Malaysian youth from digital users to producers in the digital economy.
According to Cheryl Ng, head of rero EDUteam at Cytron, this is the third year they are running this outreach campaign with support from the Ministry of Education. In 2017, the team visited over 100 schools nationwide and conducted introductory coding workshop for over 10,000 students. Last year, they conducted training for over 500 teachers and further provided the teachers with modules and resources that they can readily use to teach their students. This year, they hope to reach out and impact even more schools.
Besides equipping and empowering teachers and student leaders, Cytron also organises robotics and coding competitions to provide a platform for school students to gain hands-on experience and showcase their talents. This year, with the introduction of rero:micro robot, rero EDUteam aims to recruit more international teams to compete at their annual robotics and coding championship (RAC’19), which will be held at Mines International Exhibition and Convention Centre from 1st to 3rd November 2019.
rero:micro is a child-friendly robot kit that is especially designed to encourage young children to learn coding in a fun and easy manner. It comes with a game track and a 10-lesson booklet with step-by-step guide, fun facts and coding challenges.
“It was a delight to explore. It is fun, easy to learn and is full of exciting activities”
Waris Candra, Head of Asia Pacific at Microbit Educational Foundation, in his review of rero:micro
“As digital technology is about opening our minds and lives to a world of possibilities, such education programmes and talent initiatives are most welcome as they are helping our children go beyond just preparing for career employment; for true digital transformation, learning must continue right through the whole of life,” said Sumitra Nair, MDEC’s vice president of Talent and Entrepreneurship, who during the launch ceremony, accepted 10 rero:micro robots on behalf of the #mydigitalmaker movement from Tan Eng Tong, CEO of Cytron Technologies. The robots will be placed at the community Digital Maker Hub in Cyberjaya for teachers and students to use.
To prepare Malaysia’s children for high value digital economy opportunities, MDEC launched the #mydigitalmaker Movement in 2016, involving partnering with the Ministry of Education, industry and academia to nurture and groom young Malaysians to become future digital innovators. The #mydigitalmaker has now evolved into a nationwide joint public-private-academia initiative to transform Malaysian youth from digital users to producers in the digital economy. This includes skills such as coding, app development, 3D printing, robotics, embedded programming and data analytics; all of which will ultimately help to strengthen problem solving and creativity among our future generation
