Launching of “SI @ 1EDU – the only ONE!: Social Innovation Initiatives”

Launching of “SI @ 1EDU – the only ONE!: Social Innovation Initiatives”

This book captures relevant social innovation initiatives done by the staff and students of the faculty which involved various parties across the university, industries and communities. The featured social innovation projects in this book have the following criteria:
a) bridging and sharing of knowledge between the university, community and industry
b) encourage improvement to the quality of life in terms of newly applied skills or knowledge acquired through the projects
c) sustainable that the projects could be replicated by others including the industries and communities involved
The book was launched by the Vice Chancellor on the 13th of December, 2018 during the Innovation Month Celebration held at Dewan Agong Tuanku Canselor, UiTM.

SEASIN Interview Series: Dr. Marzlin Marzuki

SEASIN Interview Series: Dr. Marzlin Marzuki

I believe that students can become better problem solvers of future challenges if they can understand the real situation.

What’s your name? Tell us about yourself.

I am Dr Marzlin Marzuki, Head of Study Centre, Faculty of Accountancy at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Kedah Branch, Malaysia. I am passionate about helping the community. I would like to see the community gain knowledge and generate income to increase their economy. I am willing to extend my professional services as well as other possible assistance to help the community. In my opinion, helping the community would increase the sense of social responsibility.

What do you think the most important social challenges are at the moment? 

The most important social challenge is to educate the community to increase their economy. Currently, my group members transfer our professional knowledge in designing branding and packaging, marketing and maintaining account records low income communities that produce traditional cookies. The sharing of knowledge provides the community with a chance to learn from experts in a non-formal context and improve their level of income.

How do you think students or young people can play a role in helping solve these challenges?

Students and young people can play a role in helping these challenges by providing an avenue for the students to contribute to the society. They should be exposed to activities or programs that would engage them to work with the community or society. In fact, there are various potential ideas that can be drawn from the students to assist the community.

What did you learn at the SEASIN studio?

I have learnt a systematic way to implement the social innovation project during the SEASIN studio workshop. In fact, there are many ideas that can be converted into the social innovation project. Indeed, SEASIN studio has changed my perspective on social innovation initiatives. For me social innovation are initiatives that would benefit the community at large.

Do you think it is important that university play a role in the community that is more than as academia? How?

In my opinion, universities can play an important role to help the community. Universities can provide human resources in terms of academia as well as students to initiate project that can benefit the society/community. Academics can apply their knowledge to assist the community. The academics can guide the students to assist the community within their ability. This win win situation between the university and the community would increase the rapport between these two entities. Subsequently, it promotes the life-long learning process between the academia, students and community. I believe that students can become better problem solvers of future challenges if they can understand the real situation.

SEASIN Interview Series: Farah Syuhada

SEASIN Interview Series: Farah Syuhada

What’s your name? Tell us a bit about yourself. 

My name is Farah Syuhada and I am a masters students in UiTM Shah Alam. I am passionate about creating possible solutions of existing problems and helping others in achieving a better quality life – no matter how small or how big it might be.

What do you think the most important social challenges are at the moment?

As of recently, there are worries of how graduates from educational courses, especially, are still unemployed despite graduated since a year ago and have gone through the interview process in order to be an educator.

What are you doing to address this challenge or what do you hope to do?

Coming from educational courses myself, it does worries me a little. However, students or graduates (not only graduates from educational faculty) have to take initiative for themselves. What I did in order to overcome it myself is to engage in different skills that could potentially be useful in future employments. What I hope to do is to create awareness on the self-initiative strategy that the graduates can employ in order to get hired. What I also hope to do is to create awareness and platform somewhere along the sayings that goes ‘if they cannot get the jobs, create them’.

How do you think students/young people can play a role in helping solve these challenges? 

The most important role the students might have to take on is being the workforce in translating ideas into actual work. Since students are mostly young and healthy, they should take on these challenges head on. With the guidance of lecturers and supervisors, students can also be the generator of possible ideas and creators of innovation that could actually be used in solving certain social problems.

What did you learn at the SEASIN studio?

What I learnt for the SEASIN studio was that in creating solutions, you need different sets of eyes in helping to create a flawless and ideal solutions. Different perspectives brings out different angles that needed to be looked upon which is impossible to do alone. Networking and strategies about executing it are also part of the lessons that I’ve learnt.

Has the SEASIN studio introduced you to new ways of thinking/working? Has it changed your perspective or your behaviour?

It definitely introduced me to brilliant ideas and new ways of working/thinking that really gave me different perspectives in social innovation. It does not necessarily change my perspective but it really does add on, on my views of certain things.

What does ‘social innovation’ mean to you?

Social innovations are new strategies, solutions and ideas in meeting the needs of social challenges that could create a better quality in civil community.

Do you think it is important that universities play a role in the community that is more than as academia? How?

I think universities have the greatest degree of roles in the community as they have the educators and students that not only act as the workforce but also act as hubs in creating ideas and solutions to the problems at hand. Universities also have one of the largest networking that would help in approaching those problems.

What can universities do to help students become better problem solvers of future challenges?

In my opinion, universities should create or create hubs/centres where students of different courses background can submit ideas and those ideas will be openly discussed among the students in order to fill in the gaps or loopholes that might be overlooked. This ways, students’ ideas are not totally dismissed but improved upon. Not only that, involving students from different backgrounds of courses will give them a glimpse of what other problems that might exist outside of their own capacity of their own learning. These hopefully will create a better environment to create students with great problem-solving and innovation skills.

UITM SISU EVALUATION

UITM SISU EVALUATION

On the 28th of March 2018, a delegation from the European Commission as well as SEASIN members participated in the SISU evaluation session. The event took place at the Seminar Room situated at the UiTM-MTDC Technopreneur Centre.

The event started roughly at 9 a.m. The event started with the singing of the Malaysian national anthem as well as an opening speech by Prof. Mark Anderson. The event continued with a reply speech followed by a presentation by the Director of UiTM-SISU, Prof. Dr. Faizah Abd. Majid.

The delegation was also brought for a tour of the UiTM-SISU facilities shortly after. Lunch took place at the UiTM Hotel, which is then followed by the evaluation and a sharing session among the members of UiTM-SISU who came to the events.

Among them were Dr. Eddie, Dr. Marzlin, Prof. Dr. Maznah, Pn Rohasmizah and some of her project members. The event concluded around 4 p.m.

 

How can virtual reality help patients with brain injury?

How can virtual reality help patients with brain injury?

At the UiTM SISU launch, we met with Fariz Hanapiah and Shamsul Nashriq from Motiofixo, Malaysia’s homegrown creative agency. They have recently launched MRVR, and are working with UITM”s Faculty of Medicine to explore how virtual reality can help patients with traumatic brain injury in their rehabilitation programme. MRVR is a platform, which gathers VR content that are of use for rehab from all over the world, and made accessible to rehab facilities and hospitals.

 

1) Tell us about your idea/project, virtual reality platform for healthcare. What inspired you to do this work? 

The idea came about as we were already doing VR content but mainly for little games for brand activations and experimental work. We felt that we needed a bigger goal to just making simple games. Making a full fledge VR game would be the usual path to take looking at the size of the industry but to me there are more untapped areas of making VR content for other uses. We thought of making VR to help people, and rehab seems like the path that we could go into.

2) How are you working with the University (UITM) at the moment? Where do you see the synergy in working with a university?
It will be really important to be working with UiTM’s Faculty of Medicine. It will provide us the clinical backing to how VR will help the patients. It is a perfect match as we seek clinical advisory and them seeking new tech to help facilitate their patients and research.
3) At what stage is your project? What will be your next steps? How do you aim to maximise the impact of your project? 
We are at a stage of getting the awareness and completing our pilot content as a proof of concept. As awareness of the usage grows, so do our target customer reach. We will be working closely with UiTM with their established networks of medical organizations and associations to get the awareness through.
4) What are some challenges you face?
Challenges I would say getting the clinical stamp and approval for the contents. And as for the platform will be on getting VR developers to hop on the platform. First few VR content should be able to set the tone of the rest of the content on the platform.On the other hand, as we just about to penetrate a new dimension (healthcare tech), it is important for people (investors, media, innovators) to be aware of such tech. More and more efforts on educating and explaining how our tech works would be essential.
5) What does social innovation look like in Malaysia? What is it’s potential?
Social innovation is pretty much a big deal in Malaysia. Besides globalisation, the government has also contributed by introducing Blue Ocean Strategies that can enhance society & governance efficiency through social innovation. This has created a trend among young Malaysians taking part in volunteerism, entrepreneurship as well as activism programs that require them to mobilise low-cost-high-impact ideas. In the long run, it can position Malaysia as the best social innovation hub of the region.