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Team NUS from the National University of Singapore clinched the top prize of US$100,000 (S$149,970) at the Grand Finals of The Star Challenge@Fusionopolis held on 23 October, as announced by the competition's sponsor and organiser, Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).
The competition was developed to encourage the development of next-generation multimedia search engine technologies.
Next-generation multimedia search technologies are expected to transform how the public will interact with rich-media material, considering the proliferation of user-generated platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Flickr.
The other finalist teams were: SHRC from Peking University, China; the Laboratoire d'Informatique de Grenoble in France; NII-KAORI/IRISA in Japan; and Team UIUC-YX, from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA.
All five finalist teams had previously survived three increasingly difficult challenges that preceded the Grand Finals, and converged on Singapore for the competition.
A total of 56 teams from 17 countries entered this global competition when it began 10 months ago. The contestants included search engine enthusiasts as well as several of the worlds top laboratories.
Said Mr Victor Goh, one of the excited winners from Team NUS, "We would like to thank Prof Chua Tat Seng and all who have supported us...We are pleased with the end result as well as honoured to be up against so many worthy contestants."
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