Bali, 13 November: The Vice Chancellor of UTM Prof. Datuk Dr Zaini Ujang impressed the audience during his talk at the 8th QS-APPLE Conference in Bali from 14 – 16 November 2012. Around 600 delegates from 134 universities participated at the conference.
UTM was represented by Tan Sri Ramli Kushairy, one of the LPU members, the Vice Chancellor Datuk Zaini, Director of International Affairs, Prof Ismail Abdul Aziz, and his Deputy, Prof Ho Chin Siong.
In his talk to a packed audience, Zaini shared the UTM journey towards an Entrepreneurial Research University from the time he took office, and now becoming a graduate-focused university with a student population of 12871 postgraduate students and 11392 undergraduates. UTM also has the highest number of PhD candidates in the region, numbering at 4447 students.
Zaini highlighted UTM’s transformation projects towards becoming a global top university, showing how the university’s differentiation strategy has resulted in impactful, innovative and entrepreneurial ventures and undertakings. This is in view of the challenging global climate that calls for a redefinition of the university’s role in terms of institutional goals, functional operations and service offerings.
UTM is also actively engaged in strategic research collaboration with renowned institutions around the world in areas of mutual interest. One such collaboration is with MIT on Sustainable Cities. Zaini also invited universities that are interested to join in the sustainability initiatives of UTM.
Apart from that Zaini also highlighted the initiative of the university in providing experiential learning exposure to students in the 1 or 3-credit course called Job Creation where students are involved in bidding for actual projects at the university by setting up their own companies. Students have to come up with their business proposals, which is a good training ground for engaging students in real-life projects.
This is part of the entrepreneurial mindset and culture that UTM is trying to nurture among students. Zaini also shared the Entrepreneur-in-residence programme UTM is adopting to support the inculcation of entrepreneurial culture among students and staff where successful entrepreneurial icons, like Mark Chang of Jobstreet, are engaged as Entrepreneur-in-residence at the university to share insights and experience with the university community.
Zaini also shared another UTM initiative in Student Transformation which is the 5 Excellent Track Programme (5ETP). This special programme by the university is to nurture and enrich students’ talent and potential in the areas of sports, leadership, nobel academics, entrepreneurship and tahfiz.
Various universities have come forward to express interest in collaborating with UTM. Apart from universities that have already established partnership with UTM, new potential partner universities for collaboration include Taipei Medical University, National Taipei University of Technology, Far Eastern Federal University of Russia and Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. UTM would be interested to assist them and work together on transformation initiatives based on the experience and insights that we have acquired thus far.
The conference was officiated by Vice Minister of Education and Culture, Indonesia.