Interview with C:F Grand Award winners

C:F - Tell us about the first time when you had the inkling of an idea of implementing such a design for the Metro systems.

In a highly populated with rapidly developing country like Singapore, the efficiency of the public transport system is one of the key factors towards the development of the country. As a regular user of Metro system, we have experienced all kinds of frustrating situations during our rides. Few years back, when we were riding the Metro, we experienced saturated train capacity problem - squeezed in and out of the train during rush hour causes a lot of delay in the travelling time of commuters. By that time, both of us were so frustrated about it and we had a wild thought of having the entire stretch of the side wall of the metro be transformed into a door that opened upwards rapidly so that the commuters can alight and board the train more easily. That was story when we first had this "wild thought".

C:F - What challenges did you meet during the competition?

The are a few challenges that we met during the competition listed with priority:

1. Very tight schedule of studies as we had to cope with our final year BEng dissertation and maintain our academic results. However, we were very passionate about this competition! :) That's why we were in the Finals :P 2. The competition is very open-ended, and we often did not know how far we should go, or how much we should do in order to be competitive with other teams. 3. We are Engineering students and less business-minded. Writing business reports have always been troublesome to us. We found that we were less advantaged in comparison to the majority of the teams. However, we really have to admit that the C:F Boot Camp really inspired us! And thanks to the mentor who provide precious advice to reinforce our ideas, and thanks to all my friends who had greatly critiqued our ideas. From there, we found an awesome solution and saw the overall picture better.

C:F - What advice would you give to this year's competitors?

See more, listen more and feel more! Simple solutions to big problems are always very awesome :) Problems and solutions are around us, we just need to link them together. You know that you're making an impact to the world ;)

C:F - How are you planning to take forward your winning idea and how can C:F help you?

By this time, our idea is still in the initial phase for any actual realization. The idea is practical, however we hope to fill in all the missing pieces before bringing it out to the world as we want a perfect solution instead of a rush and incomplete solution. Hence, we plan to bring this idea to education institutions to study and further develop the idea. When it is complete, then we will bring it to the relevant authorities. C:F can help us by spreading our ideas in any publications to inspire every passionate young minds/relevant organizations, to criticize the idea, to provide solution to the idea and also to use the idea! :) We would love to continue to develop the idea if we had the chance and support to do so :)

C:F - Tell us about your most inspiring moment during the C:F Summit

Yen Ching: My most inspiring moment during the C:F Summit was when I was on the stage, presenting our ideas to the judges and friends from many other countries, telling them the problems and the solutions. It was the very first step in my life, because i never knew that sharing your ideas to the world is so easy! Thanks to C:F for providing me this opportunity, and it'll definitely makes me do more in the future :)

Chen Sin: To me, C:F itself is already a very inspiring event that i have ever came across. It provides a platform for passionate young people to share their ideas and thoughts to current problems faced by our society. I have learnt a lot through the posts and links that members of C:F had shared.

C:F - Where would you like to see your solution to be implemented first?

The question that we're more concern is when instead of where. The problem exists and this is a fact, some people would have to take the lead to implement it and we have no idea where will it be. Perhaps in Asia where population density is high and growth is rapid, like Japan, Hong Kong, China, etc.

C:F - How will you /did you spend your prize money?

Yen Ching & Chen Sin: We went back to our educational institute and have donated a portion to them, on one hand to thank the institute for nurturing us, on the other hand to inspire the young people in the institution to follow our passion towards innovation and sustainability :) We have not touched the remaining since then. Oh, we had a great meal with our friends and families. :) If there were a chance to implement our idea, we would use our prize money to do so (if it is possible). And if not, we would probably use the money to travel around the world (practically) to see the world and learn more problems and figure out more solutions :)

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