NIBONG TEBAL, 31 January 2016 – Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) plans to optimise the use of available resources, including in the various engineering fields, as part of the effort to transform the university in achieving APEX 2020.

USM Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dato’ Dr. Omar Osman said, this includes improving means of income generation that is more sustainable in ensuring the existing plan becomes a success.

Speaking to the USM School of Civil Engineering community during his one-day visit to the Nibong Tebal Engineering Campus recently he said, there are various resources that could be generated by the Engineering Campus as potential earnings for the university.

“Moreover, we have plentiful expertise, research products and facilities which have yet to be optimised in usage,” he said further.

Meanwhile, the Director of Engineering Campus, Professor Dr. Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah said, the Vice-Chancellor’s visit was truly meaningful especially to the campus community.

“In today’s session, we could see that there is a synergistic matching of ideas from the Engineering Campus with the viewpoints of the university’s top management. We are ready to move forward and implement strategies for the excellence of the university even though there may be constraints and major challenges from 2016 onwards,” said Ahmad Farhan.

He was on tour, in his first 100 days in office, of all the Centres of Responsibility (PTJ) at the Engineering Campus to identify critical issues and to have a better understanding of the roles and responsibilities of each department, as well as to organise strategies which would be aligned with the mission and vision of the university.

The Vice-Chancellor also toured some of the laboratories which have the potential of generating income for the university, including the Underwater Lab, Control & Robotics Group (URRG) at the School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, and the Graphene Research Lab at the School of Chemical Engineering.

Catching the Vice-Chancellor’s attention also was the Bioenergy Lab at the School of Mechanical Engineering, headed by Professor Dr. Zainal Alimuddin Zainal Alauddin which attracted the media’s attention recently with his research product called the Kitchen Waste Carbonizer (KWC), offering a solution in the form of efficiently disposing domestic waste.

 

The Vice-Chancellor also toured the laboratory which gave rise to the researcher who was highly responsible for the recognitions to the university, Professor Dr. Bassim H. Hameed at the School of Chemical Engineering, who has recently been identified as one of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds 2015”, and stopped by at a few labs under the School of Civil Engineering which have succeeded in producing the most number of findings through tests done at the labs with external parties.

Others who were present during the visit were the USM Registrar, Professor Dr. Abd Aziz Tajuddin; Director of Human Resource Management Division, Dr. Musa Ali; Director of Chancellory Management Office, Hj. Mohd Saad Hj. Din and Head of University Development Department, Arman Abdul Razak.

Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin

Text: Mohd Kamil Ashar / Photos: Faisal Mohamad