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[Media Release] Amazing Learning Experience In The Maldives

31 Jul 2019 7:35pm
Students and staff from 10 nationalities embarked on an unforgettable 8 Days 7 Nights experience to the Maldives.

Kuala Lumpur, 29 July 2019: The university experiences of 29 students from the Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation (APU) were enhanced as they were amongst the first batch of students to undergo a study tour of a study tour in the Maldives. The programme was conducted with briefings, pre-departure arrangements in May and June 2019, with visit to Maldives National University (MNU), Alumni Gathering and students spent 8 days in the Island nation.
 
The study tour was organized to cultivate an interest in environmental & sustainability studies, exposing students towards the tourism and economic development of the Maldives archipelago.
 
An array of educational activities such as lecture classes, school visitations, cultural exchange sessions, beach cleaning outings and workshops took place, in line with unique tourism experiences such as coral reef snorkeling, fishing trip, dolphin tour and water sports activities.
 
The #APUAbroad group encompassed students and staff from various nationalities, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Brunei, Sri Lanka, Egypt, China, Australia, India and Pakistan. The activity received support from the Maldives National University (MNU), Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA), Bodulfolhudhoo Island Council and Lagoon View Maldives.

Prof. Ron Edwards, Vice Chancellor of APU (left), interacted with students of the Maldives National University during his visit as part of the study tour.
 
Mohamed Hashim, Minister of State for Higher Education, Maldives, met the visiting group during their first night at Male, Maldives. At the Welcome Dinner cum Alumni Dinner Gathering, Hashim extended a warm welcome to the group, while addressing the APU Maldivian alumni community, “It is a great pleasure for me to be here, hosting this study tour from Malaysia. I’m happy to meet our Maldivian students who are graduates from APU, and I record my gratitude to the university for nurturing our students. I look forward to hosting more study tours from APU in Maldives in future.”
 
Close to 100 Maldivian alumni joined Hashim in welcoming the #APUAbroad Study Tour group at the dinner. “Since I left university, I’ve always missed APU and Malaysia. It is very heartwarming to see ex-lecturers and juniors from my beloved university travelling all the way from Malaysia to my beloved country for the study tour. As a Maldivian, I feel honoured for the university to choose Maldives as the first stop of the APU Abroad programme,” said Abdulla Irfan, alumni of the BSc (Hons) Business Information Technology course, currently the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of a renowned construction company in the Maldives. Irfan was one of APU’s notable alumni who shared his experiences with the group at the dinner.
 
Currently, APU houses more than 250 Maldivian students amongst its international community of 12,000 students who come from over 130 countries. The Welcome Dinner cum Alumni Dinner Gathering was planned and coordinated by Maldivian staff, students and alumni who were members of the Maldivian Students Association (MSA) at APU.

 
The key takeaways enjoyed by the group from the trip were:
  • A substantial increase in awareness and knowledge about environmental conservation, through the coral reef preservation talks, snorkelling sessions and beach cleaning activity at Lagoon View Maldives
  • A better appreciation of cultural difference through local school visitations, participation in the Maldivian Night organized by the local community coordinated by the Bodulfolhudhoo Island Council and participation in the Maldivian Alumni Gathering Dinner
  • Deepened understanding of challenges of marine preservation through lecture sessions conducted by the Maldives National University, and
  • New discovery of hidden potentials of the Republic of Maldives through economic and tourism overview seminars at the Maldives Monetary Authority and Maldives National University
 
The #APUAbroad study tour to the Maldives created unforgettable memories for the 29 participating students. Wan Nurashiqin binti Nor Azmi, Malaysian student of the Diploma in Electrical & Electronic Engineering programme, recalled, “At the trip, I have learnt to be always eager in learning new cultural experiences. Activities like the sunset fishing trip have given me a truly local Maldivian experience. I feel really grateful to participate in the trip, and I will also cherish the memories of interacting with the local community.”
 
“#APUAbroad Maldives has given me the experience of the lifetime. The deep engagement with the locals via several talks and seminar sessions has widened my knowledge about the beautiful and wonderful island of Maldives with their unique culture and sea-life. I also learned about the devastating effect of pollution and what the impact to the Maldives islands. Lots of activities were arranged for us in order for us to have the best experience of our #APUabroad international study trip to Maldives. I look forward to join in more #APUAbroad Study Tours in future,”, said Justin Louis Halim from Indonesia, a student of the BSc (Hons) in Computer Science with a specialism in Data Analytics programme, who was among the 29 students who underwent the programme.

 
Prof. Ron Edwards, Vice Chancellor of APU, was amongst the visiting group from APU. “The Maldives study tour was a great opportunity for our students to meet APU alumni who completed their degrees some years ago and are now in senior positions, as well as senior government, university and business leaders and gained insights into the Maldives that would not normally be available to visitors to the country. It was a wonderful opportunity and students made the most of it by engaging actively in conversations with these senior people”, expressed Prof. Ron Edwards.
 

ComputerWorld - "MDEC Wants To Have 1,500 Malaysian Data Scientists By 2020"

28 Apr 2019 3:17pm


We are pleased to share that APU was recently accorded recognition for our strong support towards Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC)’s Big Data initiatives during the KL Big Data Week 2015  which was held on Tuesday, 21 April and Wednesday, 22 April 2015 at the Sunway Pyramid Convention Center (SPCC).

As part of our efforts towards talent development in Big Data, APU has already started offering modules at undergraduate level in collaboration with EMC2 – APU is Malaysia’s first Institution to sign up as EMS2’s Academic partner. However, the new and upcoming postgraduate programme in data science with a focus on data and business analytics specialisations provides a very exciting option indeed for professionals interested in going in deep into Big Data Analytics. 

Mr. Gurpardeep Singh, Vice President, Operation, represented APU in receiving the acknowledgement from the Chairman of MDeC, Tan Sri Halim Ali and MDeC’s CEO, Dato’ Yasmin Mahmood.

Please click here to read the full article by Computerworld.

[Press Release] Petroleum Experts in the Making

11 Oct 2018 2:20pm

Kuala Lumpur, 11 October 2018: Petroleum Experts (PETEX), one of the world’s leading petroleum engineering software company based in United Kingdom (UK), donated software licenses worth approximately RM8.7 million to Asia Pacific University (APU) recently.

The suite of Integrated Production Modelling (IPM) software - “Prosper”, “GAP”, “GAP TRANSIENT”, “MBAL” and “REVEAL” cover the entire spectrum of petroleum engineering concepts and application. Through the software, students are exposed to seamless learning experiences within the knowledge areas of production forecasts, reservoir optimization and other useful applications that assist them to develop critical analysis of field and reservoir management.

APU is one of the first universities in Malaysia to adopt the PETEX software suite within its academic syllabus.

Year 3 and Year 4 students of APU’s B.Eng (Hons) in Petroleum Engineering programme will be using the software in their “Production Engineering”, “Gas Engineering”, “Reservoir Engineering” modules that are offered through the programme.

The industry-grade software suite is also set to assist Final Year aspiring Petroleum Engineers in completing their Field Development Project, where students apply the use of the software suite in case studies, to simulate real-life problems and develop relevant solutions based on real-time data.

A report published by the World Economic Forum in 2017 addressed the needs for digital transformation within the oil and gas industry, where digital technologies uncover huge potentials by providing better understanding on a reservoir’s resource and production capabilities to increase efficiency; therefore, this sponsorship provided by PETEX also supports a key objective of APU to develop industry-ready skills amongst its Petroleum Engineering students, preparing them to become technologically-sound petroleum engineers as they graduate.

[Press Release] Asia Pacific University Receives Advanced Software To Facilitate Digitized Learning Experiences

11 Oct 2018 2:18pm

Kuala Lumpur, 11 October 2018: Asia Pacific University (APU) is one of very few universities in Malaysia to receive a total of 26 academic licenses of the tNavigator® software worth USD4 million (RM16 million) from Rock Flow Dynamics Inc., USA recently.

APU’s B.Eng (Hons) in Petroleum Engineering students will be exposed to the tNavigator® package, which includes the Geology Designer, Model Designer, PVT Designer, VFP Designer, Network Designer, Simulation Engines, Simulation Results GUI and History-Matching modules.

The tNavigator® is the first and only product on the market which dynamically combines a fully interactive 3D graphical user interface and a record breaking parallel supercomputing engine. Through the software, students can make use of interactive modern visualization methods to assist them to effectively learn the flow of oil and gas, understand the composition of hydrocarbon fluids and design effective geological methods for drilling and oil extraction.

Year 3 and Year 4 students of APU’s B.Eng (Hons) in Petroleum Engineering programme will be using the software in their “Reservoir Simulation” and “Enhanced Oil Recovery” modules that are offered through the programme.

The industry-grade software suite is also set to assist Final Year aspiring Petroleum Engineers in completing their Field Development Project, where students apply the use of the software to calculate properties of fluids, build surface network models and construct static and dynamic reservoir models to develop real-life reservoir management solutions.

A report published by the World Economic Forum in 2017 addressed the needs for digital transformation within the oil and gas industry, where digital technologies uncover huge potentials by providing better understanding on a reservoir’s resource and production capabilities to increase efficiency; therefore, this sponsorship provided by Rock Flow Dynamics Inc. also supports a key objective of APU to develop industry-ready skills amongst its Petroleum Engineering students, preparing them to become technologically-sound petroleum engineers as they graduate.

About Rock Flow Dynamics Inc, (RFD)

Rock Flow Dynamics (RFD) develops software for the petroleum industry. It offers a wide range of advanced innovative tools for reservoir engineering implemented in tNavigator – the dynamic reservoir simulator developed by the company. RFD is expanding quickly to keep up with a fast growing Oil & Gas service industry. New technologies developed by the research and product development teams of Rock Flow Dynamics are integrated into the company’s flagship product – tNavigator®. The software employs Qt graphical libraries, which makes the system true multiplatform. By taking advantage of the latest computing technologies like NUMA, Hyperthreading, MPI/SMP hybrids, the performance of tNavigator by far exceeds the performance of any industry standard dynamic simulation tools. Only by using tNavigator can users be sure to unlock the full potential of modern computing hardware.

[Press Release] APU & eSM Establishes Malaysia's First eSports Academy

28 Feb 2017 10:56am

Kuala Lumpur, 23 February 2017: The Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation (APU) and eSports Malaysia (eSM) launched the APU eSports Malaysia Academy at APU’s new campus in Technology Park Malaysia, Bukit Jalil today.

A Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) was signed between Datuk Parmjit Singh, CEO of APIIT Education Group, and Dato’ Latt Shariman Abdullah, President of eSM today.

This is the first partnership of eSM with a Malaysian university to establish an eSports academy within the university’s campus.

Deputy Higher Education Minister, Y.B. Datuk Mary Yap Kain Ching witnessed the MoA signing and officiated the launching ceremony.

Apart from the launch, a full-day exhibition by APU students from the Multimedia, Computer Games Development and Creative Design programmes also took place.

eSports Malaysia representative, Rinie Ramli, APIIT alumni, Wan Hazmer, who is now the Lead Game Designer of Final Fantasy XV, and APU Computer Games Development student, who is the developer of the mobile game – Flail Rider, Jussi Pekka Tuomi, also conducted talks to the participants of the event.

Upon its establishment, the APU eSports Malaysia Academy will serve as a platform for students to develop and channel their passion for competitive gaming. APU and eSM will partner in giving support, training and proper guidelines to the students, in order to equip them with essential skills to be a professional game, eSports shoutcasters, team managers and so on, thus creating new opportunities and talents within the Malaysian eSports industry.

Some of the upcoming activities that will be organized by the academy include: game tournaments, seminars, industry talks and more.

Prior to the initiation of the academy, the relationship between APU and eSM started in January 2015, in which APU received official endorsement from eSM to establish the APU eSports Club. To date, the eSports Club has 280 members, in which some of them represented APU and Malaysia in the global arena of eSports, such as the IEF International Collegiate Esports League 2016 held in Korea, as well as the League of Legends International Collegiate Championship 2016 in Taipei.

In his opening speech, Datuk Parmjit Singh, CEO of APIIT Education Group, said, “Today is a meaningful day. It is truly an honour, and a privilege for APU to be the first university in Malaysia to launch an eSports academy together with ESM. I have no doubt in my mind, that this partnership will be an amazing journey ahead. With the launch of the APU eSports Malaysia Academy, we believe that we can deliver the best programmes and activities to the students, to prepare them for their future careers in the eSports and gaming industry.”

“The Esports Academy vision is to be one of the leading Esports Academies in the world providing talents not just to our local industry but also to the international scene as well. It is well known that our local players such as Mushi, Chuan, AmTuah and many more have been competing in many international tournament all over the world so we know that our local talents are able to compete with the best in the world. However, without proper guidance and a development program, only a few are able to compete at that level and we hope with APU Esports Malaysia Academy we are able to change that. Our mission is to ensure that the students of the academy are able to master the basic skills, act professionally and are competition ready. We want the academy to be able to raise the standard of our local competitive scene to the next natural level.,” said Dato’ Latt Shariman Abdullah, President of eSM.

The event received wonderful remarks from the attendees, “It is about time that we establish a healthy environment for our university and school students to participate in competitive gaming, while instilling soft skills such as communication skills, leadership skills and critical thinking skills within them. We are very glad that eSM and APU came up with this initiative to establish the eSports academy within the university’s environment,” said Deputy Higher Education Minister, Y.B. Datuk Mary Yap Kain Ching at the launching ceremony.