Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) is allocating RM350,000 to overcome the serious water supply problem on the university campus.

Its vice-chancellor, Prof Datuk Dr Kasim Mansor, said it would involve the implementation of internal water resource supply innovation projects such as gravity water, underground water and rainwater.

He said the project would be carried out by a team led by deputy vice-chancellor (Research and Innovation) Professor Dr Rosalam Sarbatly, together with the UMS Development and Maintenance Department (JPP), as well as experts and academicians from the UMS Faculty of Engineering.

“Efforts to carry out this clean water filtration process will also be assisted by UMS researchers who are skilled and specialised in the field,” he said in a statement here today.

“It affects not only the students but also the staff who are in the office premises,” he said.

According to the statement, the main campus of UMS Kota Kinabalu uses a piping system to obtain supply of up to 80,000 litres a day of hill water, as well as provides the tanker service to supply 300,000 litres of water from the Penampang water treatment plant (LRA) to the campus.

The Sabah Water Department (JANS) is forced to implement temporary rationing due to the inability of the Telibong LRA to meet the needs of residents of Tuaran, Sepanggar and the surrounding districts, which is 190 million litres per day (MLD) compared to its production of treated water of only 164 MLD.

Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) will implement the Student Empowerment Agenda starting 2023 involving four activities.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Kasim Mansur said the activities are autonomy in activity management, autonomy in financial management, political autonomy of students and also full involvement in the Student Representative Council.

"Students will be involved in determining the decision and implementation of their program and also the distribution of subsidies or financial allocations.

"Students will also be given an autonomy to involve in politics on and off campus based on established guidelines.

"Meanwhile, campus elections will be fully implemented by students without the existence of a committee involving university officials," he said when delivering his address at the 'Amanat Naib Canselor 2023' event.

He also announced that the university management has approved an allocation of RM350,000 to ensure that students' accommodations are neat, comfortable and organised, for their mental and physical health to improve.

In order to accommodate the needs of students with disabilities, Kasim revealed that an additional fund of RM500,000 has been approved to improve infrastructure in the university.

To ensure the quality of internet coverage at the university is improved, he said a network system improvement project including an increase in the number of wifi is in the implementation process.

"This project covers the increase and replacement of the Wifi Access Points in dormitory by 1,327 units.

"To ensure cyber security, UMS has allocated RM400,000 for annual software and licensing.

"In order to improve the efficiency of network service monitoring and cyber security, we will establish an intelligent monitoring center known as the ICT Intelligent Command Center (ITeC) which is currently under construction and is expected to be fully operational at the beginning of April, 2023," he said.

According to Kasim, UMS is also in the process of producing the Enterprise Architecture (EA) document which is expected to be completed in May 2023.

"The production of this EA is very important to ensure that the information technology infrastructure and information systems used to support operations and decision making in the university can be developed, adapted and more efficient in the long term.

"In this 2023 we will also expand the use of Future Technology (Convergence Technology) covering the use of Blockchain, IoT, 600 Digital CCTV and upgrading teaching aids in lecture rooms and tutorials.

"Among other future technology initiatives, we will create a virtual world for UMS called Metaversity of UMS.

"Metaversity refers to a virtual world or virtual environment created to enable interaction and collaboration between users through avatars.

This will be a precursor to more widespread use in the future," he further elaborated.

In conclusion, Kasim expressed his appreciation towards stakeholders, strategic partners and all staff, including cleaning service staff, landscaping, maintenance and all entities involved in developing the excellence of the university.

The event was held at the Chancellor Hall and broadcast virtually. 

The Confucius Institute at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) will organize its 24th Land Below the Wind Talk on 8 March 2023 at Theatrette Ahmad Nisfu, Academy of Arts and Creative Technology, UMS.

The organizer has invited Madam Angelina Zhang, the founder of ‘Miao in Sabah’, a professional media influencer to deliver her talk entitled “The Evolution of Sabah Chinese Food from China”.

Angelina Zhang is the founder of Miao in Sabah, who is also a professional media influencer production agency, and to date, she has six media platforms both in Malaysia and China with at least more than 60,000 followers.

Portraying the daily life of a China girl in Sabah, Miao in Sabah shows the Sabah's unique culture, delicacies and various tourist attractions.

Besides promoting high quality local business brands to the public and highlighting China-Malaysia business opportunity, Miao in Sabah also showcase Sabah to the world.

The talk will cover the introduction of "eight Chinese cuisines " from China, besides the changes and integration of them in Malaysian Chinese dietary life.

In addition, Chinese dishes that found in Sabah such as stuffed tofu and lei cha rice from Hakka ethnic, chicken rice from Hainanese, Hong Kong-style dim sum, and Hokkien fried noodles will also be discussed.

The talk will also promote some dishes from other races in Sabah which may receive influence from the Chinese cuisines, such as Nyonya dishes, Chinese cakes and many more.

This Land Below the Wind Talk which include food testing is opened to the public with free of charge. The talk will be conducted in Mandarin.

All are welcome to participate.

 A collaborative research between Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and an oil and gas company will look into the possibility of providing clean water for people in the interior of Sabah.

UMS researcher Dr Clarence M. Ongkudon said that the varsity and Eternity Mode Sdn Bhd would look into water filtration innovation systems for consistent clean water supply.

He added that by using such a technology, it could channel between 50 to 100 litres of water within an hour, which is double than the current capacity.

"This collaboration will focus on improving UMS monolithic water filtration technology to build a fully operational and commercially available system to be installed in remote areas such as Kampung Long Pasia, Sipitang, and Kampung Guakon, Tamparuli.

"This technology is developed based on a poly methacrylate membrane that can be recycled and maintained using local technology.

"With this system in place, it is expected to contribute to the achievement of the sixth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), which is clean water and sanitation.

"The low cost of the technology makes this innovation an ideal solution for widespread use in rural areas and as a model for future development projects," he said in a statement.

This technology is estimated to cost up to RM50,000 and is funded through the Innovation Grant Scheme (SGI) from the UMS Innovation and Commercialisation Management Center and is protected under patents owned by UMS.

At the signing of the research agreement, UMS was represented by Clarence, while Eternity Mode was represented by the chief executive officer, Gesiri Gambung.