CACM Visit to ITEBA Kicking Off Potential Research Collaboration Meeting

Dr Mohd Ayub Sulong

RM21. That was the only cost you pay when connections and network done properly. In fact, the outflow cost was due to ferry terminal tax. The rest of the 3-day commercial visits to one of the busiest islands of Indonesia, Batam, were paid-for.

Centre for Advanced Composite Materials (CACM) which consists of 6 delegates, had been invited to Institute Teknologi Batam (ITEBA). It is located near to the Batam Centre Point jetty. It took about 20 minutes drive from the jetty to the campus lobby. The delegation was headed by CACM’s Director, Assoc. Prof. Dr Shukur Hj. Abu Hassan.

The key event from this visit is to seal the agreement with the honorary rector of the institute, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ir. H. Hairul Abral. The agreement in focus for this visit is Letter of Collaboration (LOC). With the letter signed, a two-way communication between the institute and the research centre from UTM can be now established. The signing ceremony was done at the main hall of ITEBA (as shown in the photo below) and witnessed by the founder himself, Dr. H. Asman Abnur, S.E., M.Si.

Despite his busy schedule from the corporate world, he took the chance to discuss the future of the institute and his vision for the education. He envisioned that Batam island will not only known for tourism and heavy industries, the potential-laden island also will become a hub for education. This is not far-fetched ideas when geolocation is inside the golden triangle of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. The collaboration was not stopped by the officiality (i.e.: LOC signing, join industrial visits), the rector and the institute’s owner also invited the delegations to a working dinner where a lengthy discussion on the meaningful steps ahead can be done.

A friendly discussion on the potential collaboration on research was conducted on the last day of the visit. This discussion was attended by the founder itself, Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional (BRIN). Prof. Agoes, as one of the Indonesian research initiatives headed BRIN team of around 5 members. The deep and extended discussion was held in a unique setting at one of ITEBA’s cafeteria.

It is worth mentioning that industries that we visited (Labtech and GIH) were all committed and open to collaboration project. Being in industrial work, their current projects were showcased to both BRIN and CACM’s delegations as part of the commercialization effort. We appreciate all the directors who took their time to greet and spent time to share research spirit with the academia partners.

On behalf of CACM management, we would like to congratulate ITEBA for the grand event of their first ‘Wisuda’ or Graduation ceremony. We hoped that all 46 graduates from the very first batch succeeds in all fields they went into. We also observe the announcement and the speech from ITEBA’s alumni committee at the end of the historic #1 Wisuda event.

The visit need with the sharing session with ITEBA’s teaching staff. The closing event was done in one of the lecture rooms in the campus whereby the potential supervisors for the teaching staff who would like to pursue their study on the masters and PhD level can be matched. Finally, we would like to express our thanks to the ITEBA’s team for inviting us for this collaboration. We took your faith on our research capabilities as a compliment and will strive to gain more success through this newly forged research alliance.