Adelaide computer code disruptor wins international CleanTech Award

Adelaide businessman Peng Choo has won the prestigious World CleanTech Educator of the Year Award for 2021 and been nominated by the organiser for another Award which will be announced in Dubai on 14 March.

His company, Adelaide-based computer coding disruptor eLabtronics, has developed runlinc, a faster and more simplified method of writing computer code for the Internet of Things (IoT), reducing the time taken to create new code by 90 per cent or more. Furthermore, by using internet and wifi links, it allows an operator in one country to create code in a second country which then controls things like drones or machinery in a third country.

runlinc is so simple 13-year-old Cameroonian student George Vershiyi shocked Polytechnic Yaounde Professor Dr Ivo and his fellow electronics engineering students with a smart IoT Intruder alarm programmed with a few lines of code using runlinc instead of hundreds of lines of code in what Peng Choo calls ‘Difficult Coding’.

After achieving export success in Africa, south east Asia and the Middle East, Peng Choo is now preparing to tackle the Australian computer coding market. IoT applications for the runlinc system, which he dubs ‘Easy Coding’, include space surveillance, manufacturing, farming and medicine.

In 2021 an international team was awarded a $1 million contract by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to implement runlinc Easy Coding on hundreds of fish farms in Nepal under the multi-national Business Partnerships Platform (BPP). The team was led by the company’s education arm, the not-for-profit STEMSEL Foundation, which provides the runlinc system and trains Nepalese technicians and fish farmers to control the complex network of pumps and dams using computers that employ the Easy Coding system.

Each computer controlling part of an IoT network needs to be programmed. This is typically carried out using a coding tool such as Arduino which can be difficult to master, and so generating results can take days, even for comparatively simple instructions. runlinc has simplified the job so that even individuals for whom English is not a first language can write computer code.

The STEMSEL Foundation has been teaching disadvantaged children in Asia, the Middle East and Africa how to use computers and electronics using runlinc, which is now in service in more than a dozen countries, including Bhutan, Brunei, Cameroon, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Sudan, Thailand and the United States.

As a result of winning the CleanTech Award, Peng Choo has been nominated for the Visionary CleanTech Influencer of the Year Award, in the Educator category, which will be announced on 14 March in Dubai. The World CleanTech Awards are presented by the Dubai-based CleanTech Business Institute and the jury is chaired by Professor Eicke R Weber, a former Director of Germany’s influential research network, the Frauenhofer Institute.

runlinc and the Easy Coding system are now used in universities and schools in Malaysia by children aged 8 and above. STEM lecturers in Universiti Putra Malaysia, Prince Songkla University in Thailand and Royal University of Bhutan all estimate runlinc can deliver usable code in as little as 10 per cent of the time needed using traditional C++ coding methods. And a 2019 benchmarking test at Adelaide University found a set task could be completed in one sixtieth of the time and required only one quarter of the code when using Easy Coding.

Brunei-born Peng Choo said his goal is to change Difficult Coding to Easy Coding under the Australia-Malaysia Technology Exchange (AMTX) which was established in 2021. The Australian Trade Commission, Austrade, has signed an MoU with the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation, MDEC, to develop AMTX into a world-class technology eco-system.

The Chief Technology Officer of eLabtronics, Miro Kostecki, has invited all comers to call him in Adelaide for a demonstration on +61 425 868 353: callers will be able to program a runlinc Easy Coding WiFi chip with a few lines of code in Thailand in real time to activate an emergency drone in America or Africa.