Kuala Lumpur, 6 October 2015 – Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) won Best Research & Development Award in the MSC Malaysia APICTA Awards 2015 during the ICT Awards Night 2015 at Sunway Resort Hotel. This award is presented to acknowledge the effort for the most outstanding ICT R&D project. Now in its 16th year, the APICTA Awards showcases ICT excellence and innovation, and is aimed at recognising local creativity as well as ground-breaking achievements and contributions to the industry. Members of APICTA consist of 16 (sixteen) economies comprising Australia , Bangladesh , Brunei Darussalam , China , Chinese Taipei , Hong Kong , Indonesia , Japan , Macao S.A.R , Malaysia , Myanmar , Pakistan , Singapore , Sri Lanka , Thailand and Nepal.
UTM’s winning research entry is the ‘Compact Rehabilitation Robot (CR2)’ project which is aimed at developing a series of compact, portable and affordable rehabilitation robot to assist in physiotherapy training (www.cr2connect.com). The robot can assist stroke patients in their rehabilitation exercise by providing automated assistance and offering virtual reality games to increase the patients’ motivation. This project has been funded by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, L2M and CREST fund.
This project has also won other top international awards like the World Invention Award in the British Invention Show, United Kingdom and King SeJong Inventor Order of Merit (Special Award) in Korea Inventor Award Festival, South Korea.
The project is led by Dr Yeong Che Fai (CAIRO FKE), Dr Eileen Su Lee Ming (FKE) and Mdm Aqilah Leela T. Narayanan (FBME) in collaboration with the National Stroke Association of Malaysia (NASAM). The researchers involved are Mr Khor Kang Xiang (PhD candidate, MJIIT), Hisyam Abdul Rahman (PhD candidate, FKE), Sim Lee Sen (MSc candidate, FKE), Patrick Chin Jun Hua (Researcher, FKE) and Yong Bang Xiang ( Researcher, FKE).
The team would like to extend their sincere appreciation to UTM Research Management Centre (RMC), UTM Innovation & Commercialisation Centre (ICC) and Cradle Coach and Grow Programme (CGP) for their continuous support in this project.
It should also be noted that, Dr.Yeong’s spinoff company, DF Automation and Robotic Sdn Bhd has also won 2 awards, namely, the Best of Industrial Applications and Best of Start-up Companies awards.
The team will represent Malaysia at the International APICTA Awards 2015 on 18-22 November 2015 in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
