Innovation in Motion: Celebrating the 28th STePS (School of Computing Term Projects Showcase)
What began with a $2,000 seed fund has become one of NUS School of Computing’s largest flagship events.The 28th edition of STePS brought close to 95 student projects across 11 tracks into COM3, drawing over 1,000 guests – from faculty and industry leaders to government agencies, sponsors, and investors.
At its core, STePS functions as a flipped career fair. Students don’t browse company booths – they are the booths, presenting months of work to audiences who can offer feedback, internships, and collaboration on the spot. In previous editions, award-winning teams have received internship offers before the day was over.
It’s a spirit the STePS community knows well:
“We Build. We Break. We Innovate. We Repeat.”
From Classroom to Real-World Application
Projects in this edition spanned software engineering, cloud computing, game development, AI, analytics, and final-year research. The range was wide, but a common thread ran through: students weren’t just solving textbook problems. They were building tools, systems, and experiences designed for real users and real-world contexts.
Faculty members and industry evaluators assessed each project, offering the kind of constructive, specific feedback that coursework alone rarely provides. For students, the value lies not just in winning an award, but in learning how to communicate complex technical work clearly and confidently to a non-specialist audience.
The event also drew distinguished guests – C-level executives, technology leaders, HR professionals, and venture capitalists – who engaged directly with students throughout the day. Dedicated sponsor meetings and booths created space for deeper conversations around real-world application and potential commercialisation.
28th STePS Award Winners
Best Project Awards Across Tracks
Across participating courses, student teams were recognised for projects that stood out in innovation, technical execution, and impact.
Selected Platinum Winners:
- CP3108 (Independent Work) – CSE Environment Diagrams
- CS3247 (Game Development) – Yarn
- CS4240 (Interaction Design for Virtual and Augmented Reality) – VR Handbook: Stage-Based Hand Interaction in VR
- CS4248 (Natural Language Processing) – Beyond the Joke: Unmasking Hateful Memes with CARA
- CS5224 (Cloud Computing) – Inspira
- FYP-IP (Final Year Project and Independent Project) – DGLight: DQN-Guided GRPO Fine-Tuning of Large Language Models for Traffic Signal Control
- IT5007 (Software Engineering on Application Architecture) – skillsPulse
- MComp (Master of Computing Thesis) – A Context-Aware Triage Framework for High-Fidelity Vulnerability Management in Automotive Embedded System
Innovative Open-Source Excellence Award
Introduced to celebrate and promote open-source culture within the School of Computing, this award recognises students who build solutions that contribute back to the wider developer community.
Winners (Shared):
- CP3108-12: Adding Python to Source Academy – Chia Meng Jit, Malani Aarav Sajeel
- FYP-IP-09: PyTorch in Source Academy – Vee Hua Zhi
Video and Marketing Excellence Award
This award recognises teams that communicated their ideas clearly and creatively through strong storytelling and presentation.
Winner:
- CS4240-03: VR Handbook – Stage-Based Hand Interaction in VR
Ho Pei Ling, Lim Rui Ting Valencia, Loh Shi Jie Elaine, Soh Zheng Yang Marcus, Tan Jing Ni Shirley, Yap Xuan Xuan
Building Community Through Innovation
From immersive VR experiences and game development to research-driven work in NLP, cloud computing, and AI, this year’s projects reflected the diversity of talent across NUS Computing. But STePS has always been about more than individual projects. It’s a space where students learn from each other – seeing how peers approach problems, design systems, and articulate ideas under pressure.
Today, STePS is a fully sponsored event backed by committed industry partners who continue to invest not only financially, but through mentorship, internships, and long-term collaboration. That growth speaks to something important: the work our students do is worth showing up for.
To everyone who showed up, built something, judged something, or believed in what STePS could become – thank you for making the 28th edition possible.
Read more about 28th STePS: https://uvents.nus.edu.sg/event/28th-steps
Explore student project videos: https://www.youtube.com/@STePS_NUS
