Unsurprisingly for a continent of its size, Asia has a large number of universities to choose from, with a significant number included in the QS World University Rankings® 2018. While many prestigious Asian universities date back to the 19th or early 20th century (if not before), the region is also home to many fast-rising young institutions.

In fact, Asia boasts six uninterrupted places at the top of the QS Top 50 Under 50 2018, which showcases the world’s top universities under 50 years old.

A total of 21 young universities in Asia are included in the Top 50 Under 50, more than any other region. This includes universities from across the continent, in both the far east and the far west of Asia, including countries such as Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Out of all the Asian countries featured, Hong Kong and Malaysia each have the most entries (four each), with all but one of Hong Kong’s representatives appearing in the top 10.

UTM is ranked at number 10 in the list of top 10 young universities in Asia in 2018, 21st in the Top 50 Under 50 and 253rd in the world this year. A research-intensive university, UTM was established in 1972 and specialises in engineering, science and technology. It is located in Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru and aims to be a world-class centre of academia and technological excellence.

Source: QS World University Rankings

TheCentre for Engineering Education (CEE), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and RCE Iskandar in collaboration with Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA), Johor State Education Department (JPNJ) and University Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) organized the RCE Iskandar Sustainable & Low Carbon Schools Exhibition 2017 on 19 June 2017 at UniKL Bandar Seri Alam, Johor. This is in conjunction with “Iskandar Learning Festival 2017” organized by IRDA.

The exhibition was to provide an opportunity for schools to showcase their efforts in giving awareness to school students, teachers, parents and community on green, low carbon and sustainable development. The exhibition and competition among the schools was also a platform for the schools to receive recognition for their efforts. The schools were judged by international and local experts in environment education from Kyoto City, JICA, Kyoto Environmental Activities Association, KIKO Network Japan, IRDA, JPNJ and higher education institutes. The winner for the Best of the Best (primary school) for the 2017 exhibition went to the same winner of 2016 which is SJKC Pulai while the winner for the same award for secondary school went to SMK Sultanah Engku Tun Aminah, Johor Bahru. 9 schools were awarded gold medals, 8 schools silver medals and 1 school bronze medal.

Other special awards are Best Booth (primary school) won by SJKC Woon Hwa, Best Poster (primary school) won by SKJT Taman Tun Aminah, Best Booth (secondary school) won by SMK Ulu Tiram and Best Poster (secondary school) won by SMK Telok Kerang. All the prizes were presented by the sponsors of the program. The sponsors were Seri Alam Properties, UMLand, SWM Environment, Masless Express and Dasani Mineral Water.

Besides the school exhibition and competition, many organizations were invited to join the exhibition such as Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) Johor, Kelab Alami, Syarikat Air Johor, SWM Environment, J-Bio Tech, Jabatan Alam Sekitar (JAS) Johor, EM Resources Centre, UTM Low Carbon Asia Research Centre, IPG Temenggong Ibrahim, UiTM Pasir Gudang and UniKL Bandar Seri Alam.

At the same time, parallel talks and workshops by experts in Education for Sustainable Development were given throughout the whole day. Topics such as sustainability, composting, water, tree planting, green chemistry, solid waste management, cycling, community science and so on are given by experts from UTM, IPG Temenggong Ibrahim, MNS, SWM Environment, JAS, J-Bio Tech, EM Resources Centre and Japanese organizations.

The exhibition attracted more than 1000 participants from schools, governmental and non-governmental agencies and public. This is the third year UTM organized such an exhibition under RCE Iskandar. It is hoped to encourage more schools to involve in efforts to make schools green and spread ESD awareness among the school community and the surrounding.

Task Force Jurnal Penerbitan of UTM Razak School conducted a “Journal Review” Publishing Workshop on July 19, 2017 (Wednesday) at Razak Tower for its academic staff and postgraduate students.
This workshop, which consists of knowledge-sharing session and practical training session, would enable staff and students to produce quality “review” articles for publications in high-impact journals. The workshop was conducted by Dr. Firdaus Muhammad-Sukki, a lecturer from Robert Gordon University, UK.
At the end of this workshop, it is hoped that quality review articles will be produced by lecturers and students, hence assisting Razak School in achieving the KPI publication based on e-LPPT and MyRA II.

Biodata of Dr Firdaus Muhammad-Sukki
Dr Firdaus Muhammad-Sukki received his MEng degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College, London in 2006 under the Yayasan TM scholarship. In 2009, he received studentship awards from Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and Yayasan TM to pursue his postgraduate study in Glasgow Caledonian University from which he obtained his PhD in 2013. Dr. Firdaus Muhammad Sukki is a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and an associate of the City and Guilds, London (ACGI). Dr. Firdaus Muhammad Sukki has been an active researcher and is currently a Lecturer in Robert Gordon University, United Kingdom. His research interest is in solar energy, particularly in terms of designing optical solar concentrators to create a low cost solar photovoltaic system. On top of that, he also carried out a number of non-technical research including market trend and financial analysis related to renewable technologies for countries such as Malaysia, Japan, Nigeria, Cameroon and United Kingdom. He has excellent track record in collaborating with research universities in around the globe. He has published numerous articles in high impact factor journals (e.g. Nature, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, Applied Energy, Energy, Renewable Energy, Energy Policy etc.). He has produced 16 review paper in high impact journals. As an academic author, to date, he has an h-index of 13 and i-index of 17, with a cumulative citation of 502. He is also actively presenting in various conferences related to his area. Prior to joining the academia, he was a communication engineer in Malaysia’s largest telecommunication company. He was in charge of the leased line servers for Malaysia’s network and was involved in major projects related to the telecommunication while holding the post.