MANILA, Philippines — A 19-year-old fourth year student from Saint Louie University in Baguio City was adjudged this year’s grand prize winner in the recently-concluded 2012 Bank of the Philippines-Department of Science and Technology (BPI-DoST) “Best Science Project of the Year” awards held at the BPI head office in Makati City.

Sarah Jane M. Calpo, a fourth year BS in Information Technology student, was adjudged the “Best Project of the Year” winner for her work iSketch: A Web-enabled Facial Composite Illustration System employing the feature-based Approach.

She received a trophy of recognition from BPI Foundation, a cash incentive of P50, 000 and a Masteral/Doctorate scholarship from the DoST subject to the existing rules and regulations of the DoST-Science Education Institute.

Calpo said the groundbreaking study was meant to help improve the Philippine National Police’s capability in solving crimes, provide a low-cost alternative to the computerized composite illustration system currently being used by the PNP in police sketch of suspected criminals.

The 1st runner-up Best Project of the Year award went to Chiallist B. Juan, a fourth year student from the University of the Philippines (UP) Los Baños, for his work: Analysis on the Effect of Various Factors to the Voltage Drop of a Single-wire Earth Return Distribution System in Lipa Soil Series.

The 2nd runner-up Best Project of the Year award went to Maxine Andrea T. Garcia, a fourth year BS Life Sciences student from Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) for her work: Identification and Assessment of Bacterial Bioaerosols Present in Light Rail Transit and Metro Rail Transit Station using Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism of 16S rRNA Genre. Both the 1st place and 2nd place winners received P30,000 and P10,000 cash prizes, respectively and trophies from the BPI Foundation.

Other finalists include Marie Gene D. Cruz, a BS Life Sciences student at the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) for her work: Synergistic Overview of Rainfall in Matina Heights, Davao City in a Finite Window; Aibar Rabi Rashad F. Bibi, a BS in Electronics & Communications Engineering student from the De La Salle University (DLSU) for his work: Battery Management System (BMS) for Lithium-Ion Electric Vehicle Traction Batteries and Ferdinand Renfred A. Zapata, a student from the University of San Carlos for his work: Effects of Chitosan Extracts from Shrimp head wastes applied as fruit coating on bitter gourd Momordica charantia L. Sta. Rita Strain.

The BPI-DoST Best Project of the Year Award, the country's longest running science competition, aims to recognize and provide incentives to graduating students in selected colleges/universities who excel in specialized fields of science, namely: Mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science and biology.

The awards, now on its 7th year, is a joint undertaking of the BPI Foundation, Inc., the corporate social responsibility arm of the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), and the Department of Science and Technology (DoST).

Participants include science and engineering students from each of BPI Foundation’s ten partner-universities nationwide which vie for the ‘Best Project of the Year’ Awards. These colleges and universities nominate up to three science and engineering projects each year, of which six are chosen as finalists. Three of the six finalist are chosen as the winners, and the first and second runners-up.

The 10 partner colleges and universities include Ateneo de Manila University, Ateneo de Davao, De La Salle University, Silliman University ( Dumaguete City ), Saint Louie University ( Baguio ), University of the Philippines Los Baños, University of the Philippines Diliman, University of San Carlos (Cebu), University of Santo Tomas (UST) and Xavier University (Cagayan de Oro).