30th November 2019 was indeed a remarkable day for UTM because it was the first time for UTM Kuala Lumpur campus to hold the International Professional Doctorate Symposium (iPDOCS’19), involving professionals from the industry. With various themes related to Engineering, Social Sciences, and Science and Technology, iPDOCS is held once in 2 years in providing a venue for all participants especially to UTM postgraduates to share their impactful and authentic work-life problem and industry-driven research. Participants of this symposium comprised professionals who were pursuing their PhD Industry, PhD in Engineering, PhD in Software Engineering, PhD in Engineering Education and PhD in Business Administration in UTM Kuala Lumpur. Prof. Rose Alinda Alias, was invited to be the keynote speaker for this prestigious symposium.

Various awards were presented during the symposium. The winner for the Best Paper category for Social Science went to Kartina binti Abdul Latiff. The Best Paper award for Engineering was presented to Aezal Muhammad Faim and the Best Presenters award were won by Kartina binti Abdul Latiff, Aliakbar Keshtkaran, Liza @ Sri Redzeki binti Mohd Anuar and Noor Hisham bin Ismail.

With the iPDOCS’19 now behind us, the greatest gratitude went to everyone involved: presenters, keynote speaker, sponsors and the UTM School of Graduate Studies (SPS) and the UTM Post Graduate Student Society (PGSS-UTM) for holding this symposium. This kind of event should be continued in the future as it helps researchers to understand their surroundings and to conduct more impactful studies for their community and country.