UPM and UM Enhance Learning Facilities and Empower Student Lives with 4G Mobile Internet

Kuala Lumpur, 13 September 2010 – Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Universiti Malaya (UM) today joined the Education Partner Program (EPP) spearheaded by YTL Communications Sdn Bhd (YTL Comms). Under the program, both universities will apply the power of 4G Mobile Internet campus-wide to give their students cutting-edge learning facilities and further enhance the quality of life on campus for both students and academic staff.

UM plans to utilise YTL's 4G Campus-wide Network to boost research activities and be among the top 100 universities in the world

UPM and UM are the third and fourth local university respectively to join the EPP program in the last two months after UTM and UTAR. All twenty of Malaysia’s public universities and selected private universities are expected to join the program by the end of the year.

“We want the students to access our enterprise, learning and research services from anywhere and at anytime and therefore we are pleased to partner with YTL Comms to give our students the freedom and the convenience of 4G Mobile Internet,” said Professor Tan Sri Datuk Dr. Nik Mustapha R. Abdullah, Vice Chancellor of UPM.

“We champion the model of Ubiquitous Learning at UPM. This means learning whatever, whenever, wherever. We call it www-learning, which is, incidentally, the way the real Internet should be, too”, said Associate Professor Dr. Suhaimi Napis, CTO and Director, InfoComm Development Centre (iDEC), UPM.

The Ubiquitous Learning Environment (ULE) at UPM, the brainchild of Dr. Suhaimi, relies on the Malaysian Research and Education Network (MYREN), a high-capacity broadband network that connects universities, colleges, research organisations and scientific laboratories. UPM was one of the founding proposers of this dedicated network that provides a platform for creating research communities and encourages them to exchange ideas and collaborate with international partners.

MDeC, University of Malaya, Cisco to create ICT specialists for Malaysian SMEs KUALA LUMPUR, 24

KUALA LUMPUR, 24 AUGUST 2009 – Two young Malaysia-based entrepreneurs have won awards for the design and build of their multi-touch screen called Smart Surface.
Smart Surface’s co-founders, Faysal Abdulaziz (managing director) and Homam Alghorani (executive director) said the product was envisioned during their student days at APIIT (Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology), where they became interested in multi-touch technology and related natural computer interfacing.
The first prototype was designed and built at the beginning of 2009 when, in February, an entrepreneur offered the two aforementioned developers to co-form a company and fund their research, said Abdulaziz.
“Smart Surface is completely designed and built in Malaysia,” said Abdulaziz, who added that the product was launched commercially in May 2009, during the 20th ITEX09 [International Invention, Innovation and Technology Exhibition] exhibition held in Kuala Lumpur.
During ITEX09, which was organised by MINDS (Malaysian, Invention & Design Society) and the ministry of science, technology and innovation, the product won two awards for Best Invention – Corporate Category, and the ITEX Gold Medal Award.
Pioneering use of the LCD screen
The company focuses on research and development of in-house multi-touch hardware and software solutions, said Abdulaziz. “As far as we know, another Malaysian provider of a similar product, Kreateevee, uses rear projection technology for display with diffused infra-red (IR) illumination for movement detection.”
“We do use this technology in some of our early models, but we also are the pioneers in exploring the use of the LCD screen for display technology, instead of rear-projection, as well as LASER [light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation] detection technology, instead of IR illumination,” he said. “Therefore, Smart Surface is the only company that has a full range of multi-touch and surface computer application technologies [rear-projection, LCD display, LASER recognition technology, tabletop and vertical walls].”
“Smart Surface has already been in commercial use by many companies,” he added. “That means we are technologically ahead in term of solving the many problems associated with any commercial use of the product. For example, for rear-projection technology, we achieved a tabletop display size ratio to the external dimensions of the top of the table of almost 1:1.”
Future plans
“It is noteworthy that some of our clients, such as British American Tobacco and Cool Merchant Connections had already approached other local companies that offered multi-touch technology,” he added. “However, they opted to use Smart Surface products after they compared all technological aspects.”
Regarding future developments, he said: “We have already spoken with APIIT for cooperation through internships for students who will learn firsthand about our multi-touch technology and its applications. This will enrich the academic field of multi-touch research in Malaysia.”
“We also have ongoing discussions with the Centre for Research & Innovation Management at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, for possible cooperation on developing suitable applications for them,” said Abdulaziz.

FSKTM Students Represented UPM in Imagine Cup

Three students from the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology (FSKTM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), were selected to represent UPM at the 2011 Malaysia Imagine Cup competition recently.

Mohamad Najib Basery, The Green P The FSKTM team is led by their mentors, Dr. Lili Nurliyana Abdullah, Dr. Razali Yaakob and Dr. Rohaya Latip. Namely the Green P, they created the 'Botanic Sustainability Smart System', a web based software to identify the type of soil and suitable plants that can be planted with it. A second year student in Bachelor of Computer Science (Computer Networks), Mohamad Najib said the idea to develop the software was drawn from the famine situation in Africa. Thus we are inspired to help them in identifying suitable crops for their land. "It took us almost two months to develop this system as well as data collected from the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry (MOA), Institute for Research and Development Institute (MARDI) and assisted by Prof. Dr. Kamaruzaman Joseph from the Faculty of Forestry, "he said at the Malaysia 2011 Imagine Cup competition at the Pullman Hotel, Kuching. In addition, the system is able to analyze the crop price index, which enables those involved in the agricultural industry to determine their budget in order to initiate agricultural projects. Meanwhile, WASPending developed software that combines the teaching of general knowledge, science and math, and also a hero character as well as focused history for students aged 10 to 12 years old. WASPending team leader, Wong Ching Yee said the system called 'Challenge the Difference "was developed in the form of games and educational software. "I hope that this software will draw attention from the children’s education related industry," he said. His friend, Tan Wee Chong, a final year student of Bachelor of Computer Science (Software Engineering) from The Frontiers said his group developed 'The 1 Cent Project' a micro donation system that integrates with telecommunication companies to further promote the culture of giving among students. "Students can donate as low as one cent, and the use of the software can be promoted by the telecommunications company as a community service program (CSR). "By using this system, users can select their donation to be distributed for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the amount to be donated and the identification number and the data will be verified by the telecommunication companies after obtaining confirmation," he said. The 2011 Imagine Cup is a technology competition between the students of the Institution of Higher Education in promoting solutions to global problems. The competition aims to produce talented students in the world of software designers, programmers, game developers and digital media enthusiasts and simultaneously addressing issues related to humanitarian assistance, poverty, education, disease control, health, environment and global issues.

Mohamad Najib Basery, The Green P Copyright : Wong Ching Yee, WASPending Tan Wee Cheng,The Frontiers Copyright : Wong Ching Yee, WASPending

UTM spent RM500,000 on cyber protection

 

JOHOR BAHRU: The war against computer viruses does not come cheap. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) has spent close to RM500,000 on cyber security protection.
The university also conducted a month long campaign on anti-virus awareness among its administration staff in April.
UTM Centre for ICT director Prof Zamri Mohamad said the campaign included the installation of hardware and software protection as well as updating the operating systems (OS).
“We also arranged for talks on healthy ICT lifestyle for our staff so that they realise it may not be safe to visit sites that are not secure,” he said, adding that the university currently had 10 servers alone for anti-virus protection which were updated daily.
The Star had reported on Thursday that the university had been facing a spate of virus attacks that targeted around 6,000 computers belonging to both the university and students.
Prof Zamri said the university also conducted demonstrations on how computers should be maintained and created a website, www.antivirus.utm.my, through the intranet system.
Students with their own personal computers have also been encouraged to obtain the anti-virus protection from the university free of charge.
UTM was also looking towards moving its entire software system from Windows to Open Source as there were fewer viruses created for it.
Prof Zamri said that with viruses and hackers getting increasingly sophisticated, the idea of owning a computer was not the same as owning a radio.
“It is more like owning a car as you need to learn how to operate it. You also need to constantly service and upgrade it,” he said.
According to him, UTM was considering the possibility of making its students and staff obtain a “licence” before they are allowed to use the computers on campus.