Ming-Che Hsieh, a graduate student working under Prof. An-Bang Wang of the Institute of Applied Mechanics, claimed first prize in the 3rd FineTek Technology Awards in January. Hsieh earned not just the competition's top award, but also a monetary prize of NT$200,000 for the innovative research detailed in his paper "The Design and Analysis of a Novel Microfluidic Control System Based upon a Valveless Micropump with Multi-resonance."

The FineTek Technology Awards are organized by Taiwan's Chinese Microwave Association with the support of the Taiwan Electromagnetics Industry Union, Chinese Institute of Automation Engineers, FineTek Co., Wu Sha Culture Foundation, and numerous university graduate institutes. Now in its third year, the competition is aimed to promote cooperation between academia and industry, as well as encourage young researchers to pursue innovative and practical applications research.

The competition accepts papers that present research and applications in the five areas of fluid mechanics, automated industrial sensors, microwave technology, radar technology, and industrial wireless networking technology, all of which are related to mechanics, electrical engineering, and telecommunications.

Previously, most of the papers that made it into the final round of the competition tended to be in electrical engineering and telecommunications. As Hsieh's paper was focused on an innovative concept in fluid mechanics, his work not only joined the other outstanding papers in the final round, it succeeded in standing out above the rest.

Moreover, Hsieh's achievement testifies to the outstanding research environment at the Institute of Applied Mechanics. It also demonstrates that the FineTek Technology Awards remain open to outstanding young researchers working in any of the competition's categories. In the coming years, the competition is certain to receive submissions from students working in an increasingly broad range of fields, as well as from students who possess the courage to pit their creativity and intellect against others in a competitive setting so as to show they have the right stuff in this era of multidisciplinary research.