APU Signs MoU with IBM to Enhance Industry-Based Knowledge and Skillset in Its Curriculum

On May 19, 2015 (Tuesday), we signed an MoU with IBM as part of its Academic Initiative (AI) in academy collaboration to enhance industry based knowledge and skillset in its curriculum. The MoU was signed by Mr. Gurpardeep Singh (Vice President, Operations, APU) and Mr. Wong Chiun Chiek (Chief Financial Officer, IBM Malaysia). Other guests from IBM who attended the event included Mr. Vincent Ler (Business Unit Executive, IBM ASEAN Cloud Ecosystem), Ms. Anita Devasahayam (Brand & Communications Manager, IBM Malaysia), Ms. Mandy Teo (Strategy & Market Development Manager, IBM Cloud Ecosystem) and Mr. Long Fong Yee (Manager Business Development & ISV Partners, IBM Global Business Parners). Our Programme Advisor from Staffordshire University, Mr. Russell Campion also attended the event.

As a result of this MoU, IBM and APU will expand the scope of the curriculum to advance IT programmes in areas including mobile application design and development, cloud computing, analytics and security in the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Technology (FCET). Faculty members and students are also encouraged to realise their ideas using IBM technologies. 

In 2013, APU collaborated with IBM on academic initiative to deliver IBM professional certification courses as an additional skillset to educate students with industry-relevant knowledge and skills. These courses which include model-driven development platform and application design/development with Java Enterprise Edition (EE) platform, received an overwhelming response from APU IT students. Since then, APU continues to offer various IBM courses to its students and trains them with industry certified skillsets in the field of software engineering. Currently, APU has trained over 100 students as IBM certified software architects and IBM certified software developers. These students possess knowledge of IBM Rational software for architecting, designing, developing and testing software.

As part of this academic partnership, IBM provides software, courseware, instructor training, teaching topics and professional certification examination vouchers to APU under IBM academic initiative program. This enables APU with expertise and knowledge in line with latest IT industry requirements. It also facilitate APU to provide state of the art technology coupled with widespread adoption of IT products for software design and development in order to prepare the students for meeting the future industry requirements.