The 8th Joint Workshop for Global Engineers in Asia & Beyond (JWGEA) 2022 was successfully held online, hosted by King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), Bangkok, Thailand, on 25-26 July 2022. JWGEA is a consortium formed with four members from four countries – King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), Thailand, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), Indonesia, Ritsumeikan University (RU), Japan, and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia. Among its objectives are to support the development of communication, planning, leadership, and cross-cultural skills through joint implementation of students from a variety of linguistic, cultural, and research backgrounds; to improve understanding and recognition of different cultures and English abilities of the students; and to promote networking and research exchange among the faculties, researchers, young scientists and students of each university members. Among the participants, 15 students and 10 staff from UTM joined the two-day event. A range of programs related to talks about competitiveness, sustainability, post-COVID lifestyle, outcome-based learning, problem-solving and cultural activities were covered during the workshop. Parallel sessions were conducted for students to present their research outcomes. Students from different countries were grouped into small groups to discuss post-COVID challenges and ways to overcome them.
During the opening ceremony, UTM was represented by Prof. Dr Nor Haniza Sarmin, the Associate Director, Global Strategy & Engagement, UTM International, who highlighted UTM’s global reputation.
A dialogue session led by Dr Koolpiruck from KMUTT entitled “Alignment of University’s Roles and Transformation” was also held. A range of new learning pathways and trends were discussed.
Two keynotes were delivered during the workshop. Dr Rulli Pratiwi Setiawan (Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember) delivered the first keynote on the topic “Bibliometric Analysis using VOS Viewer”, and Prof. Dr Normah Mohd Ghazali delivered the second keynote from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia on the topic “Learning Outside Your Box”.
Two UTM students from the Faculty of Engineering received Best Research Presentations Awards during the Closing Ceremony; Mirza Hussein Sabki from the School of Chemical and Energy Engineering with his paper entitled “Correlation of metabolite profile with growth performance of Zea mays L. inoculated with Rhodopseudomonas palustris” and Hong Yee Kek from School of Mechanical Engineering with her paper entitled “Effect of Air Change Rate to the Human-Emitted Particles in a Medical Ward: a Numerical Approach”.
Since 2014, JWGEA has been hosted by UTM (2014), KMUTT (2015), ITS (2016), Ritsumeikan University (2017, 2018), ITS (2019), and Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University (ETU) (2021, Online). Each university has a delegation of two to three professors and over ten graduate students from various disciplines (engineering, ICT, built environment, etc.). In 2018, St Petersburg Electronical University (ETU), St. Petersburg, also joined JWGEA.
More about JWGEA:
Find out more about JWGEA from the international office of the respective institution. For UTM, contact UTM International, Global Education unit at e-mail: globaleducation@utm.my. Watch out for the Call of Applications around March-April each year on the UTM Mobility Program Facebook page and UTM International Website: http://www.utm.my/international/iip/.
Written by: Prof. Dr Lee Chew Tin and Prof. Dr Nor Haniza Sarmin