SATREPS-OTEC Project Management Team and Secretariat has successfully organised the 4th Meeting of SATREPS-OTEC Programme for MoHE with 5 Outputs via online platform of Cisco Webex Meetings from 24 to 26 August 2021.
The Objectives of this semi-annual meeting are:
1. To provide progress update for each sub-project (general information, financial reporting, physical progress, challenges and activity plan for the next 6 months)
2. To provide updates on the SATREPS-OTEC overall goal and project purpose through 5 outputs
3. To discuss other arising matters, namely technical transfer activity plan and etc.
The participants of the event include Project Leaders of 10 Sub-Projects from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), University of Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) as well as Project Members, Postgraduates Students and Interns from UTM, UPM, UKM, UM, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT), UCSI University, and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS). The event was also attended by the Japanese Researchers from Saga University, University of Tokyo and National Institute of Advanced industrial Science and Technology (AIST).
Among the Malaysian Officials attended were representatives from Special Funds and Coordination Section, Higher Education Institute of Research Management Division, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Higher Education and International Cooperation Division, Economic Planning Unit, Prime Minister’s Department. Also presented were Japanese Officials from Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST).
In general, despite the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic and the enforcement of a series of Movement Control Orders (MCOs) in Malaysia, all the 10 projects funded by the Ministry of Education Malaysia have made some progress, and any shortfalls would be overcome in the coming months and in the following budget year.
In addition, the preliminary findings are very encouraging, hence pose further possibilities in project enhancement and inter-project collaboration, namely the integration of projects on:
○Heat exchanger, turbine and nanofluids
○Seaweed and abalone culture
○Water quality analysis
Nevertheless, more efforts would be put in place to enhance education, technology transfer, information sharing, awareness promotion and improve visibility of all projects through registration of IPs and publication of impactful articles, and above all, the need to conduct pre-feasibility/feasibility studies at least at 2 selected sites in Sabah.
