On 30th March 2021, the second collaborative webinar series was successfully co-organized by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Tamkang University (TkU), and University of Reading Malaysia (UoRM) right after the first webinar organized on 9th of Mac 2021. The 2nd collaborative webinar entitled “Designing for Future Cities” was delivered by Hajjah Maimunah Jaffar, the Director of Lead, Technology & Innovation of Iskandar Regional Development Authority. The collaborative webinar series rotated among three collaboration Universities, whereby the first series initiated by Tamkang University (TkU), followed by University of Reading Malaysia (UoRM) and ended by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) from early of March to end of April 2021. The webinar was participated by more than 70 participants across the universities, and professionals in Malaysia and Taiwan.
The purpose of the collaborative webinar series was to promote the knowledge exchange and transfer between three universities to staff and students. The partnership programme was launched in the middle of 2020 to enable three universities to collaborate together on an international collaboration fund research projects and academic activities. The collaboration was led by Prof Ts Dr Mohd Hamdan Ahmad from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Development UTM and the members of the team consisted of Dr Leng Pau Chung and Dr Gabriel Ling Hoh Teck from Faculty of Built Environment and Surveying as well as Dr Eeydzah Aminudin (School of Civil Engineering) and Dr Chan Weng Howe (School of Computing) from Faculty of Engineering UTM. On the other hand, the University of Reading Malaysia team was led by Dr Bruno Lot Tanko, MRICS, Head of Built Environment, and Dr Celine Lee Cen Ying, lecturer at the University of Reading Malaysia’s Henley Business School, while the Tamkang University team was led by Associate Prof Dr Fan-Su Ling.
The above-mentioned webinar started at 11am and ended at 12pm, followed by the question and answer session. The session moderator was Dr Celine Lee, senior lecturer from University of Reading Malaysia. This session was open not only to the local students from UTM, UoRM and TkU Taiwan but also to the Professionals in building industry, local authorities and partnership universities’ staff and students among three universities.
The shared topic was mainly discussing about the background and planning of smart city, smart building for integrated design, construction and maintenance as well as data analytics for informed decision making in Iskandar Region Malaysia. Via the webinar, the participants had the opportunity to understand the updates, current practice and way forward of IRDA in development of Iskandar region. The webinar wrapped up with the Q&A session followed by the conclusion by the speaker. The webinar ended at 1230pm in the afternoon.
Text prepared by:
Ts Dr Leng Pau Chung