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from inquirer.net.

Bulacan students' mobile phone security software wins award

By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 05:52pm (Mla time) 03/14/2007

MANILA -- Bulacan State University (BSU) bested 34 other schools to win P1 million in cash and grants in the 2007 Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program (SWEEP).

BSU Computer engineering students Reginald Payuran, Rexcel Balatbat, Jasmin Macalino, Carmelita Mendoza and Ferdinand Nicdao created an application called Smart PhoneGuard.
Their mentor for the project was Magdalena Gatdula, who also happened to mentor two other groups also from BSU.

Their project is an application that locks down a mobile phone if it is stolen. The next user of the stolen phone would not be able to access the original user's messages and phonebook.

The software will also block the signal of the phone, rendering it useless for making calls, even if the subscriber identification module (SIM) card is replaced.

The software has to be installed in at least two phones so that the other phone would be used to activate the stolen phone's lockdowncommand.

Ten other schools made it to the finals for the SWEEP Awards, three of whom were also from BSU. The other finalists were from Ateneo De Manila University, Systems Plus College, Ateneo De Davao University, New Era University and Adamson University.

The winning BSU team went home with P500,000 while the school received P500,000 worth of grants, the biggest prize given in the three years of SWEEP.

In a press conference prior to the awarding, Smart Communications Public Affairs Head Ramon Isberto said the level of competition this year has increased since the last two years, as entries started to have both hardware and software components.

"It used to be more on the hardware development side but the teams are more sophisticated and they are including software into their projects. Some of the students were actually from computer science courses and not just electrical and electronics engineering," Isberto said.

Isberto said this year's SWEEP is unique as they have included a theme that all the entrants had to follow. This year, they focused on phone safety and security.

Isberto also noted that Smart has included an on-the-job training for students and a faculty immersion in SWEEP. This would allow computer science and electrical engineering students to experience working in telecommunications companies.