{"id":27797,"date":"2019-06-11T19:17:14","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T23:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urelles.com\/octas-2019-an-it-youth-award-that-could-change-the-lives-of-500000-people-in-quebec\/"},"modified":"2025-03-25T12:43:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T16:43:33","slug":"octas-2019-an-it-youth-award-that-could-change-the-lives-of-500000-people-in-quebec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urelles.com\/en\/magazine\/portraits-en\/octas-2019-an-it-youth-award-that-could-change-the-lives-of-500000-people-in-quebec\/","title":{"rendered":"OCTAS 2019: an IT Youth Award that could change the lives of 500,000* people in Quebec"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><strong>Maria Zilic at the 2019 OCTAS ceremony<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Wednesday June 5, 2019, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionti.com\/en\/octas-2024\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">OCTAS awards<\/a> evening was held. A total of 15 awards were presented, including one in the Prix Jeunesse en TI category, awarded to Maria Zilic for her <em>Diabetic Think Tank<\/em> project. Meet this inspiring and passionate young woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 33rd OCTAS evening was held at New City Gas, where <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionti.com\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">R\u00e9seau ACTION TI<\/a> honored Quebec&#8217;s best IT and digital projects. In a gala atmosphere, I had the chance to meet Maria Zilic, a student in Secondary 5 at Coll\u00e8ge Jean-de-Br\u00e9beuf in Montreal. Her project: an application dedicated to diabetics that reminds them to take their insulin using arm movements for smartwatches, or face movements for smartphones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The genesis of this project? Maria Zilic is a diabetic herself. It was while confronting this medication constraint that she came up with the idea of investigating and realizing that the difficulties she was encountering were common to all people with diabetes. The seed had been sown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s the little things that make the big differences\u201d &#8211; Maria Zilic<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Passionate about technology, Maria Zilic&#8217;s parents have always encouraged her to learn and surpass herself. Having long been determined to one day develop her own mobile application, Maria Zilic decided to take the plunge and offer a concrete solution that could improve not only her daily life, but that of hundreds of thousands of people in Quebec. As she rightly says: \u201cIt&#8217;s the little things that make the big differences\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was in the summer of 2018 that Maria decided to make her idea a reality. Initially, the app was to use facial recognition. In the end, it was thanks to movement that the app would alert its users. Aware that this is a real need for our society, she determines all the steps and approaches and surrounds herself with competent people for signal processing in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen you&#8217;re really interested and motivated, there are caring people ready to help you\u201d, explains Maria, \u2018Even if you don&#8217;t have parents in the field, if you really have a passion, the teachers realize this and surround you\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Initially, the <em>Diabetic Think Tank<\/em> project was submitted to the Expo Science science contest, which brings together tens of thousands of young people aged 6 to 20 across Quebec, before being selected for the OCTAS 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this nomination is a great joy for the young developer, who sees a personal achievement in the realization of her project, and who appreciates the recognition she has received from fellow IT professionals in Quebec.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maria hopes to launch the application on the market in the not-too-distant future. She would also like to pursue research into diabetes, a disease that is as much a part of her life as her passion for technology and the digital world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>*Sources: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.diabete.qc.ca\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.diabete.qc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maria Zilic at the 2019 OCTAS ceremony On Wednesday June 5, 2019, the OCTAS awards evening was held. A total of 15 awards were presented, including one in the Prix Jeunesse en TI category, awarded to Maria Zilic for her Diabetic Think Tank project. Meet this inspiring and passionate young woman. The 33rd OCTAS evening [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-portraits-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<title>OCTAS 2019: an IT Youth Award that could change the lives of 500,000* people in Quebec - URelles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.urelles.com\/en\/magazine\/portraits-en\/octas-2019-an-it-youth-award-that-could-change-the-lives-of-500000-people-in-quebec\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"OCTAS 2019: an IT Youth Award that could change the lives of 500,000* people in Quebec - URelles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Maria Zilic at the 2019 OCTAS ceremony On Wednesday June 5, 2019, the OCTAS awards evening was held. 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