The Sustainable Entrepreneurial Mindset Showcase 2020 (SEMS 3.0) had finally come to a conclusion. It is one of UTM’s Centre for Student Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship’s (UTM XCITE) flagship program that aims to democratize and nurture the spirit of innovation and technopreneurship among UTM students by encouraging them to develop ideas, solutions, or prototypes to solve challenges pertaining to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This is the third time the program was being conducted and due to the Movement Control Order (MCO), SEMS 3.0 was entirely conducted via online platforms. It began from 12th April 2020 with calls for participation and ended on 13th June 2020 with the list of winners’ announcement.
Similar to previous years, students from the Graduate Success Attributes (UHAK) and entrepreneurship courses (UBSS) were required to demonstrate their products and services which were developed based on United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They have been guided by their respective entrepreneurship lecturers since the beginning of the Semester 2 2019/2020.
To cope with the restrictions of MCO, UTM XCITE had introduced two new stages of the evaluation process, wherein the first stage, the lecturers of each class assessed and chose the best groups in their respective classrooms to be representative in the final round.
Among the judges for the final round included experts from industry and academic field namely; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mohd Zaidi bin Abd Rozan (UTM XCITE’s Director), Dr. Umar Haiyat bin Abdul Kohar (UTM XCITE’s Deputy Director), Dr. Shazwin Mat Taib (Deputy Director, UTM Sustainable Campus), Mr. Teh Kee Sin (Founding President of SME Association of Johor Selatan), Mr. Mohd Izwan Yusof (Senior Associate, Malaysian Technology Development Corporation) and finally Dr. Logaiswari Indiran (Head of R&D Unit, Politeknik METrO Johor Bahru).
A group of students from the School of Electrical Engineering with their product, ‘Scholar’ won the Best of the Best award and brought home RM500. They were supervised by Dr. Mohd Shahrizal Rusli. The second place along with a prize money of RM400 was won by VCare Cleaning Services, a group from the School of Civil Engineering, UTM supervised by Ts. Dr. Faridahanim Ahmad. Meanwhile, the third-place along with a prize money of RM200 went to Zettabyte team from the School of Computing, supervised by Dr. Hairudin Abdul Majid.
Aside from those main winners, there were; five best video winners (each group received RM 300), 10 SDG category winners (each group received RM 100), and four best advisor winners (Dr. Mohd Shahrizal Rusli, Dr. Hairudin Abdul Majid, Ts. Dr. Faridahanim Ahmad and Dr. Raja Kamarulzaman Raja Ibrahim).
Fundamentally, the principal purpose of the event was to expose UTM students to entrepreneurial activities, which included the vital processes of validating ideas and prototype development. Despite the restrictions of MCO, the program was a success thanks to the organizing committee, lecturers, panel of judges, and especially participants for acclimatizing and striving towards creativity and innovation at the times of crisis, with limitations, and restrictions.
