KOTA KINABALU: Six students and staff from Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) are representing Malaysia in the World Championships of Performing Arts (WCoPA) in Los Angeles, United States of America (USA).

The championship is taking place from July 22 to July 30.

The participants are two students from the Art and Creative Technology Academy (ASTiF), two students from the Psychology and Education Faculty (FPP) and a staff from academy and a UMS administrative staff.

ASTiF music art student, Kristy Samunting will be contesting in the Vocal Broadway singing category, Vocal Pop, Vocal R&B and Open Vocal for ages between 18 and 24 years old.

ASTiF dance art student, Vanessa William will be contesting in the solo dance contemporary category, Dance Open, Dance Lyrical and Dance Ethnic for the age category of 18 to 24 years old.

FPP UMS student, Noor Hasfizzah Ladin, will be contesting in the singing competition of Vocal Pop, Vocal Open, Vocal Variety and Vocal World for the age category of 25-29; while Quenner Mitchell Pauzi, an FPP postgraduate student, will be contesting in the instrumental music category showcasing Sabah’s musical instrument, “Sundatang”.

Quenner has taken part in the event before, bringing a gold, three silver and one bronze medals to Malaysia.

The two UMS staff contesting are ASTiF Creative Art Programme chief, Dr Sharip Zainal Sagkif Shek and UMS Senior Culture Artists, Norain Abd Razak.

They will be taking part in the duet dance event for the age category of 30 years and above.

For the record, the last time UMS took part in the competition was in 2018 where it garnered one gold, seven silver and one bronze medals.

KOTA KINABALU: A total of 555 Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) celebrated 555 of its staff and retirees at the UMS Excellence Awards (AKU) 2022 event held at the Dewan Resital on Wednesday.

Of the total, 160 were recipients of the Excellent Service Award, 76 recipients of the Innovation Award, and 18 were recipents of the “Jasamu Dikenang” Award.

The event also celebrated 18 staff who have served 25 years where they received the Sanjungan Budi Award, 71 others who served for 20 years received the Jasa Setia Award and and 212 staff serving 10 years received the Jasa Bakti Award.

The award ceremony was launched by UMS Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Datuk ChM Ts. Dr. Taufiq Yap Yun Hin.

Also present were UMS Registrar who is also Chairman of the AKU 2022 Organizing Committee, Luqman Ridha Anwar; Deputy Vice Chancellor (Student Affairs and Alumni), Associate Professor Dr. Raman Noordin; Treasurer, Badrul Hisham Ismail; and UMS Legal Advisor, Awang Suhaizam Bungso.

In his speech, Taufiq said that UMS needs to set aspirations and determination in line with the S.W.I.F.T principles highlighted by the Chief Secretary to the State (KSN), Tan Sri Mohd Zuki Ali.

"The principles which is speed, world class knowledge, inspirational, flexible and technology-based is five critical characteristics that must be adopted into the mind and action of civil servants.

"In relation to that, I would like to urge that the UMS family should always have a sense of urgency to act swiftly without delay in every task they are entrusted with.

"This is in the line with the first value of speed to realize the aspirations of the government that place importance on performance and focused on the people among civil servants," he said.

Taufiq said that the second value that should be followed is to acquire world-class knowledge to ensure the implementation of tasks not only follows one’s personal perspective, but also the best practices from locally and abroad as benchmarks.

"The third value is inspirational whereby civil servants must always inspire and motivate their subordinates to create a harmonious environment and a conducive working environment for every staff.

"UMS officers must also be flexible especially when facing challenging situations in service delivery such as fourth value of S.W.I.F.T which is flexible.

"And the fifth and last value is technology-based, whereby all UMS staff must inculcate technology-based values ​​in implementing every task at the office to ensure speedy and comprehensive service delivery," he said.

Taufiq also congratulated all the award recipients at the ceremony.

"May you always succeed and create creative and innovative ideas and strive to excel during the length your service at this university," he said.

LABUAN: NEUROGINE Group of Companies, a financial technology (fintech) developer of mobile platforms for banking, payment, money broking, merchant and more, has inked a collaboration with Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) to explore issues of financial inclusion, particularly for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and credit access.

Neurogine Group chief executive officer Owen Chen Chee Onn said the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between UMS and Neurogine Group is to seek fresh ideas and answers, leveraging Neurogine Group’s technological capabilities and experience to help targeted business segments, especially SMEs, recover.

“We are pursuing this direction as SMEs are key drivers of economic growth and job creation, especially in developing economies like Malaysia.

“From our viewpoint we see a noticeable gap of capital and credit access, characterised by market failures and imperfections, like information asymmetries, inadequacy of acceptable collaterals, high transaction costs, and perceptions of higher risks.

“It is worthwhile to explore new ways of providing capital and credit access to SMEs using our technologies,” he said after the recent MoU signing, according to Bernama.

The MoU was signed at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah Labuan International Campus or UMSKAL by UMS vice-chancellor Prof. Datuk Taufiq Yap Yun Hin and Owen Chen, and witnessed by UMS registrar Luqman Ridha Anwar and Neurogine Group chairman Chen Chee Peng.

Chen said the MoU represents an escalation of collaboration between both organisations from a letter of intent previously signed on Feb 27, 2020.

As a result of the MoU, three immediate initiatives are in the works, with the first initiative to explore the potential and readiness of local SMEs adapting new financial technology.

“We see advantages in hybridising our fintech for SMEs, providing new access to global funding to increase food production, ensure sustainable sea harvests and more.

“Given the current crisis, we think this is timely that UMS and Neurogine will do research on this area and to fund this initiative, we are announcing today the availability of research grants – we have started to evaluate suitable applied research proposals with UMS,” he said.

The second initiative is to expand and continue to support the UMS-Neurogine Internship Programme, a three-month programme where Neurogine Group provides tools and a sand-box environment for interns from UMS to gain real-world experience, critical to boost their employability rate after graduation.

While the third is to actively take on an active role to support UMS in the organisation of seminars, conferences and workshops related to finance and technology. Yap said UMS will collaborate with industry players to develop business solutions.

KOTA KINABALU: Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) students on campus can start enjoying balanced meals at a RM3.50 ceiling price from Friday (July 15).

UMS deputy vice chancellor (Student Affairs and Alumni) Prof Madya Dr Raman Noordin said this is in line with the Higher Education Ministry’s call for higher learning institutions to provide quality food at affordable prices for students.

He said campus students in UMS, as well as those living close to the university, will be able to benefit from UMS’ “Food Basket Siswa Keluarga Malaysia” initiative.

He said the college cafeteria operators in the university have agreed to be on board with the programme and to ensure that the food provided at a low price was still of quality and nutritious.

“We will not compromise on quality although the pricing is this low,” said Prof Raman.

He said this can benefit all students, especially the 13,179 B40 students in UMS.

To help cafeteria operators cover the rising cost of ingredients, among other things, UMS also agreed to allow them a six-month rental moratorium starting July, he said.

Prof Raman said this can help them with their rental costs as they reduce the prices of food sold to students for the programme.

UMS vice chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Taufiq Yap Yun Hin said likewise, under the university’s #UMSPeduli (UMS care) programme, they will continue to strengthen the existing food bank programme introduced in 2019.

“This Food Bank initiative is not only for campus students but also to those living outside the university,” he said.

“For this, the non-resident and student housing facility centre (PNRF) had also set up a food bank for non-resident students near the PNRF centre at Anjung Siswa, UMS,” he said.

Prof Taufiq hopes corporate bodies and other agencies can come forward to be part of this initiative to help needy students and ensure that they at least have proper food and drinks to enjoy when studying at the university.