Closing

The work of the screening committee finally finished at past eight in the evening on Wednesday, December 2, 1998. With winners determined for each category, we took a breather and braced ourselves for the remaining task--notifying the applicants whose works had been accepted. It had appeared certain, from the way the committee members hinted (they had been in the preliminary screening), that we would be eventually able to select winning works. Even so, I was concerned until we had actually decided those winning works. Within the budget restrictions and without lowering the screening criteria, the more entries we could accept, the happier the applicants--it was an ideal situation for all of us at the committee.

Judging from our past experience, we decided to divide the categories into three different levels--ENTRY, SPEED, and IDEA. We are confident that the contest was an interesting experience for all the applicants, including those who used KLIC for the first time. It's just a pity that we could have attracted many more applicants to the previous contests had we held them in the same way.

When we informed those whose entries had been accepted, a few of them said that they had wanted to apply for the SPEED category as well, but were too busy as they also had to write other papers. Similar comments were received while we accepted applications for the contest. We fully understand that for college students, writing academic papers for their schools takes precedence over this contest. Even so, this was frustrating for the working committee who tried to invite as many applicants as possible.

These contests were something of a trial-and-error from the outset, and I think that by this third time we've gained some useful knowledge about procedures. We shall use this know-how in the future, but as mentioned earlier, the contest will end for the time being. We apologize for any mistakes and inconveniences that may have occurred during these contests.
All of us at the committee and others involved are very grateful for all the support we have received. We sincerely hope to stage a similar contest in the future, probably in a different format, and hope you will participate at that time.

Lastly, I would like to thank the members of the KLIC task group and the working committee for all their help.