MANILA, Philippines — An “avatar” for the hearing impaired, an effective way to recover high-purity silver from wasterwater and a breakthrough organic pest control -- these are the groundbreaking projects highlighted during the 2010 Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI)-Department of Science and Technology (DoST) Science Awards on Friday.

Created by exceptional science and engineering students from top universities, the projects were chosen for their relevance and impact to knowledge advancement, their viability for commercial production and marketability, the originality and uniqueness of the studies, and their adherence to scientific soundness.

Among the three, a potentially groundbreaking study that could help the hearing impaired using a Filipino sign language avatar developed by Ahmed Abdullah Khayef, a BS Information Technology student from Saint Louis University of Baguio City was chosen as the “Best Project of the Year.”

Titled, “Translating Words through Synthesized Sign Language Avatar,” Khayef’s project could cater not only to people with hearing impairment but to others who would like to learn sign language. “The project is like an electronic dictionary and the user can input his or her specified language. This is made generic to accommodate all languages,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the project of BS Chemical Engineering of the University of the Philippines in Los Baños Jomuel Velandres regarding the recovery of high-purity silver from the gold effluents in the Marilao-Meycauayan-Obando River in Bulacan bagged first place. For second place, the project of BS Biology student of the University of San Carlos in Cebu Kimberly Lucero on discovering an organic pest control was chosen.

Khayef received a P50,000 cash incentive, a trophy and a scholarship for a masteral/doctorate degree from the DoST while Velandres and Lucero each received R30,000 and R10,000 in cash prizes and trophies.

According to BPI Foundation Florendo Maranan, the search for the “Best Project of the Year” Awards aims to recognize and provide incentives to graduating students in selected colleges/ universities who excel in specialized fields of science. “These include those who excel in mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science and biology,” he explained.

Maranan said the participants were from BPI Foundation’s 10 partner-universities nationwide including Ateneo de Manila University, Ateneo de Davao, De La Salle University, Silliman University (Dumaguete City), Saint Louis University (Baguio), University of the Philippines Los Baños, University of the Philippines Diliman, University of San Carlos (Cebu), University of Santo Tomas, and Xavier University (Cagayan de Oro).

“These schools can nominate up to three projects each year, of which six are chosen as finalists. Three of the six finalists will be chosen as the winner, first and second runner ups,” he added. 

Other finalists include Leo Albert Sala, a BS in Chemistry with Materials Science and Engineering student from Ateneo de Manila; Francis Tallo, a BS Applied Physics students from University of San Carlos; and Kim Hazel Arafiles, a BS Microbiology student from UST.

This year’s panel of judges was composed of Eduardo D. Jose, Jr., former Executive Director, BPI Foundation (chairman of the panel); Dr. Alvin Culaba, Professor, De La Salle University; Dr. Aura C. Matias, Dean, College of Engineering, UP Diliman; Voltaire Mistades, Assistant Professor of the Physics Department, Dela Salle University, and 1993 BPI-DOST Science Awardee (DLSU); Dr. Christopher Monterola, Associate Professor National Institute of Physics of UP-Diliman; and Dr. Maria Corazon De Ungria, head, DNA Analysis Laboratory of UP Diliman.