PENANG, September 2015 – Success achieved in various areas such as the medical sciences, computer sciences, physics and nanotechnology since more than a decade ago has brought progress to the industries and technology in many countries.

Deputy Head of Missions from the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Malaysia, David Jarkulic stressed this during his presentation at the USM 2nd Ambassadors Summit 2015 programme at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) recently, in representing the Czech Republic ambassador to Malaysia, H.E. Rudolf Hykl.

According to David, the Czech Republic has 26 public universities and 44 private universities, focusing mainly in areas of biotechnology, medicine, organic chemistry, biochemistry, nanotechnology and computer science (IT4Innovations) which may be of benefit to the universities in Malaysia.

"Relations between Malaysia and the Czech Republic has long been established, including in the areas of information and communications technology (ICT) and also biotechnology, as well as cooperation between world-renowned universities in the Czech Republic with Malaysia, such as Charles University which focuses on particle and nuclear physics, mathematics and organic chemistry and University of Pardubice which has collaborations in the fields of material science, healthcare and nanotechnology," he said.

David hoped that efforts towards collaborations with USM can be strengthened in areas such as nanotechnology, technology in chemistry/biochemistry and medicine.

"Among the missions for collaboration between the educational/research institutions in the Czech Republic and institutions of higher education in Malaysia which have borne fruit, include the one between 2 Czech technical universities and Multimedia University (MMU) in 2014/2015, 4 biomedical research institutes with Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and International Medical University (IMU), and currently a major success, which is between 7 leading universities from the Czech Republic and USM, UM, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and 3 other private institutions of higher learning," said David further.

Areas which are given great emphasis in technological progress and innovation in the Czech Republic include the fields of technical education, high-technology mechanical engineering, automotive and advanced aerospace industry.

Meanwhile, the moderator of this session, the Pro-Chancellor of USM who is also a diplomat, Tan Sri Razali Ismail later hoped that the advancements available at the highlighted institutions in the Czech Republic could be benefitted by USM through collaborations in the various fields of technology stated earlier.

"Malaysia need to emulate this effort as well as to provide more allocations for national research and innovation, while the youth need to visit and personally see the advancements in technology in the Czech Republic," Razali added.

Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin

Teks: Hafiz Meah Ghouse Meah

Foto: Mohd Fairus Md Isa