PENANG, 2 March 2018 – "It is indeed a privilege and an honour for us to have you here today visiting Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). It means a lot to us, as the National University of Singapore (NUS) is a well-respected towering figure in the academic world, and you are making time to visit us," said the USM Vice-Chancellor, Professor Datuk Dr. Asma Ismail in welcoming the delegates from NUS, led by the President, Professor Tan Eng Chye.

"I believe that there is a lot of co-sharing which could be done, and which could then move forward towards co-creation, in areas such as entrepreneurship and research, which would lead to wealth creation."

"In whatever that we do, the outcome would either be hi-tech or hi-touch; hi-tech due to the fact that we have to move as a research university (RU) and hi-touch would be in making it accessible and affordable to the quadruple helix group, which are the community, government, industry and academia," she added amidst the discussion held with NUS.

Eng Chye, meanwhile, said, "We are here because we see there is a lot of potential to be explored in the South-East Asian region, and USM is one of it, as we plan to have more collaborations."

NUS currently has 40,000 students enrolled and each year, they would send about 2,000 students out to the West for internship and semester exchange. Currently, they are exploring such potentials in the South-East Asian region.

"We are closer to South-East Asia (SEA), with an annual GDP of $625 million, and we hope the universities can contribute towards developing and advancing the SEA region," he added.

Also present were the USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International), Professor Dr. Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah; Director of USM International Mobility and Collaboration Centre (IMCC), Dr. Muhizam Mustafa; Chief Executive Officer of NUS Enterprise, Dr. Lily Chan and other principal officers of NUS.

Text: Nor Rafizah Md. Zain