MaGIC Cyberjaya, 17 June 2019 – UTM continues to be selected to be amongst the Premier Digital Tech Institutions. The Premier Digital Tech Institutions initiative was jointly developed by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) in 2017, to produce top talents and future leaders not only in digital technologies but other industries such as manufacturing and agriculture. This year, 11 universities and five polytechnics were awarded the recognition of Premier Digital Tech Universities (UTM, UM, UITM, UIA, MMU, Taylors University, APU, Sunway University, TARC, UTAR, dan HELP University) and Premier Digital Polytechnics respectively, placing them as top institutions of higher learning that can deliver first-class theoretical and practical training.
“The Premier Digital Tech Institutions initiative will ensure Malaysians will be ready in the fields of Data Analytics, AI, Robotics and Digital Marketing,” said YBhg. Dato’ Prof. Ir. Dr. Mohd Saleh Jaafar, Deputy Director General (Higher Education Department) representing YB Dr. Maszlee Malik, Minister of Education Malaysia.
Surina Shukri, Chief Executive Officer of MDEC also emphasised that MDEC will continue to support Public-Private Partnerships through programmes such as the Digital Premier Tech IHL.
The Premier Digital Tech Institutions initiative is strongly supported by the industry, featuring eight strategic industry partners at the announcement, namely Amazon Web Services, CISCO, Intel, JobStreet, Microsoft, Oracle Academy, RunCloud and SAS. These strategic partners will work closely with the 16 Premier Digital Tech Institutions to provide free cloud credits, training modules, certification programmes, training, mentoring and employment tools. This will enable its students to acquire key knowledge and skills relevant to the industry directly from leading technology companies, ensuring that they will be industry-ready upon graduation.
Among the internationally recognised cloud technology Digital Premier Tech IHL initiatives partners is RunCloud, which is a homegrown Malaysian innovation. RunCloud is a product developed by UTM School of Computing, Faculty of Engineering alumni. The product has gone through UTM MaGICX incubation and UTM-MARA Sarjana Keusahawanan IT (SKIT) programmes. During the event, Prof. Datuk Ir. Dr. Wahid bin Omar, Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia had the opportunity to congratulate Mr. Arif Tukiman, CEO of RunCloud for their RunCloud Academy launch and their global achievement which was aligned with UTM tagline of Innovative, Entrepreneurial and Global.
