PENANG, 17 April 2018 – The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition, organised by the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Institute of Postgraduate Studies (IPS), provides an excellent platform to develop the S.O.P. skills of students who are on their journey for their Ph.D.

The IPS Deputy Dean, Associate Professor Dr. Hasrina Mustafa said, the skills, namely S - Summarising, O - Organising and P - Presenting, would assist the students in presenting their research findings. In the competition, they should use the skills within the specified time of 3 minutes for their presentation.

"USM is organising the competition in its fifth year, and for the past two years, our students have won as the best among the best and represented the country at the 3MT competition in Australia," she added.

"This year we have 40 contestants who competed in three categories, which are Social Science, Science & Technology and Engineering."

Bahaa Aldeen Shihab Hamzah Almaliki from the School of Civil Engineering won the Engineering Category, Seow Eng Keng won the Science & Technology Category and Mohamad Hafifi Jamri from the School of Communication won the Social Sciences Category. Each of them received RM600 and a certificate for emerging as champion in their respective category.

USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International), Professor Dr. Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah gave away the prizes to the winners.

The winner of each category will represent USM in the Malaysia 3MT Competition at Universiti Teknologi Petronas on 10 May 2018.

The judges for this year's competition were USM Board of Governors member, Professor Dato' Dr. Ahmad Shukri Mustapa Kamal; School of Chemical Engineering academic, Professor Dr. Abdul Latif Ahmad and the School of Communication Dean, Professor Dr. Jamilah Ahmad.

Three Minute Thesis (3MT) is a research communication competition developed by the University of Queensland Australia, where PhD students have three minutes to present a compelling oration on their thesis and its significance.

3MT is a very good exercise that challenges students to consolidate their ideas and research discoveries and to be presented concisely to a non-specialist audience.  

Text: Nor Rafizah Md. Zain