Singapore, 5 April 2016 – In order to be the key drivers in a knowledge economy, Universities should not rely solely on the government, but should also develop links with the industry and business in a series of strategic partnerships.
The emphasis on synergy between the government, industry and university as outlined in the national triple helix agenda has been a key success to the national, social and economic development since the 8th Malaysia Plan. One of the important initiatives that has been created to achieve this agenda was a unique and comprehensive program called The Symbiosis developed by the Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC) by utilizing the Commercialisation of Research and Development Fund (CRDF).
In collaboration with Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), the UTM-MTDC Symbiosis Program emphasizes on nurturing the technopreneurship spirit amongst a pool of young graduates, leading towards building excellent business knowledge and skills via the establishment of university spin-off companies.
It was this experience that was shared by the Vice-Chancellor of UTM, Prof. Datuk Dr Ir Wahid Omar at the 9th World Class – Classroom for World University Leaders conference, held in Singapore between 4th and 6th April 2016, in his paper titled ‘UTM-MTDC Strategic Alliance to Accelerate Innovation and Commercialization’.
Dato’ Norhalim Yunus, the CEO of Malaysia Technology Development Corporation (MTDC) was also at hand to share his insights into the UTM-MTDC collaboration.
The sharing of experience highlighted the specific roles of both parties, with MTDC providing a CRDF fund utilised to fund several phases of commercialization activities leading to UTM obtaining licensing Fees, Consultancy Fees and Royalties paid by the companies.
Meanwhile, UTM was responsible to select and screen their in-house technologies that must fulfill the program criteria, further innovate and improvise the technologies before they were matched with the graduate entrepreneurs of the newly formed spin-off companies for the commercialization phase. During this phase, the graduate entrepreneurs will work on the ready-to-market technologies via undergoing a series of accelerated and extensive training support which focuses on the practical aspects of operating a technology-based product and spin-off companies.
Since the inception of the UTM-MTDC Symbiosis Program in 2010, UTM has managed to bring forward at least 20 of its technologies in securing a total investment of RM20 million with a generation of approximately Ringgit Malaysia 1Million commercialization annual income.