For this year’s Global Outreach Programme (GOP), 7 students from the School of Mechanical Engineering and 1 from the School of Civil Engineering visited Sabena Technics in Dinan and Saunier Duval in Nantes. Sabena Technics is involved in the maintenance and modifications services for the civil and military aircrafts while Saunier Duval manufactures heat pumps for the European market and is labelled as the Industry of the Future. The industrial visits were made possible through the cooperation of Mr Andre Berthelot, an academician at IUT Saint-Malo as well as an engineer with the Naval Group (formerly DCNS). He has taken over from Prof Thierry Mare who is now on secondment in Indonesia.
As with previous GOPs, this year’s activities included attending English sessions conducted by Ms. Valerie Coste, participating in a pedagogic game and visits to industries as well as historical sites. The GOP to France, in particular to IUT Saint-Malo, has been an annual event since 2012, being organized by Prof. Dr. Normah Mohd Ghazali specially for School of Mechanical Engineering undergraduate students, in particular Malaysians who have never joined any UTM programmes or travel abroad. It looks like GOP France 2020 will be on too.