SINGAPORE - October 22, 2003 - Baw Jing Shin and Lu Junsheng of Taiwan's Ringchain Enterprise Co. Ltd. have emerged as the regional winners of Cisco's "Tech Mastermind", a competition that tests the technical knowledge of Cisco's resellers throughout the Asia Pacific, with questions on technologies such as routing, switching, IP telephony, wireless LANs and security.

Over 300 teams entered the contest and 11 teams won through to the finals in Singapore to compete for the top prize of 2 million Cisco® Reward points (equivalent to US$7,000). In a close contest, Wu and Lu edged out the father and son team of Sakon Saechin and Phubase Saechin from Thailand's Computer & Videolab Co. Ltd. to the top prize. The Saechins earned 600,000 Cisco Reward Points (US$2,000) as runners-up.

The competition was organized by Cisco Rewards, an incentive Channels Program that rewards the sales and certifications achievements of Cisco's resellers. The teams from Sri Lanka (Millennium IT's Imal Kalulotage and Lalith Silva) and Singapore (Susanto Leman and Dicky Rahmat Bachsin from LGA Telecom Pte. Ltd.) also distinguished themselves by making it to the semi-finals.

"The winners were outstanding, but all the teams deserve congratulations for their excellent performance," said Liz Lawson, Director of Channels, Asia Pacific, Cisco Systems®. "Cisco has committed a lot of resources to training for our Channel partners and the Tech Mastermind was a fun way to highlight the importance of continuous education. Our resellers throughout the region clearly have what it takes for today's very challenging networking environment in terms of technical expertise and product knowledge."