Kathmandu- His Royal Highness Crown Prince Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev inaugurated ‘Software Meet 2000’ amidst a function here this afternoon.
The Crown Prince also gave away prizes to the winners of the first-ever software competition in Nepal organised by Kathmandu Engineering College on the occasion of the 56th auspicious birthday of His Majesty King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev.
Sangrila Software and Computer Services’ Raghunath Dhungel bagged the first prize in the professional category with his Baghchal’- a Nepali Game – while Kathmandu University’s Summit Raj Tuladhar topped the student category with ‘Text to Speech’. Dhungel and Tuladhar got a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 35,000 respectively, a shield and a certificate each.
The second and third prize in the professional category with a purse of Rs, 35,000 and Rs. 20,000 respectively went to Aptech Computer Education’s Ranjan Shrestha, and Naresh Purbey for ‘Cofort Picture Viewer’ and ‘Technical Records and Engineering Planning Aviation Sector’ respectively.
In the student category, St. Xavier College’s Ranjan Shrestha stood second and won a cash prize of Rs. 25,000 followed by Public Youth Campus’s Udesh Shrestha who secured third position winning Rs. 15,000. Ranjan and Udesh were selected for ‘Gyan-E-B-Gyan’ and ‘Library Management plus Ludo game’ respectively.
There were 34 competitors in the student category and 22 in the professional category.
“Nepal holds good potential in knowledge based industry such as information technology (IT),” said Science and Technology Minister Surendra Prasad Chaudhari addressing the inaugural ceremony. “IT can be a key to transform our economy.”
He said that the government was committed to register Nepal in the global IT map within next five years, adding it had set a target of earning Rs. 10 billion through IT business during the same period.
National Planning Commission Member Dr. Rameshananda Vaidya said that preparations were underway to constitute IT Development Fund.
Tribhuvan University’s Vice-Chancellor Navin Prakash Jung Shah said that computer could play an important role to enhance economy and extend social benefits and stressed on the need to increase investment to promote computer education.
On behalf of the organisers, Dipendra Man Shakya said that the ‘First All Nepal Software Competition’ with the theme of “Unveiling Talents into the 21st Century” was organised to create a competitive software development environment in the country.