UTM’s Outstanding Achievements at the RICS-ISM 3rd International Surveying Conference for Undergraduates 2011

by webmaster FAB | Mar 25, 2011 | News, Uncategorized

UTM’s Quantity Surveying and Construction students attended the annual conference which is jointly organized by The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS,UK) and the Institution of Surveyors Malaysia (ISM), hosted by Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang on 18th -19th March 2011.

RICS  is the leading organisation of its kind in the world for surveying professionals in property, land, construction and related environmental fields. The RICS accredits over 500 surveying programs all over the world. ISM is a national professional body incorporating four surveying disciplines, namely: Quantity Surveying, Building Surveying, Geomatic & Land Surveying  and Property & Valuation Surveying.

With the theme “Surveyors of the Future: The Challanges of Change”, the conference aimed at accelerating networking amongst surveying students in the Asia region and provide an important platform for students to interact and exchange research findings and practical experience. The conference has grown over the years and at this year’s gathering, over 400 students participated. The universities involved include USM, UTM, UM, UiTM, UTAR (KL Campus), UTR (Kampar Campus), Taylor’s University College, Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Hong Kong), Chongqing University (China), Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China), Assumption University of Thailand (Thailand) and Thammasat University (Thailand). There were 18 papers presented by the undergraduate students in 5 parallel sessions. In addition, there were 5 papers presented by industry representatives and academicians during the plenary session. They were PP Sr Dato’ Mani Usilappan (RICS), Professor Mike Riley (Liverpool John Moores University, UK), Professor Roger Flanagan (University of Reading, UK), Sr Ahmad Suhaimi Abdul Majid (RICS) and Sr Dr. Adi Irfan Che Ani (ISM).

UTM was represented by 4 final year students of the Quantity Surveying program: Chong Yaw Fatt, Nur Farah Farhana Rasid, Tan Choon Boon and Joanna Tay Yuan Ju who presented their undergraduate projects at the conference. UTM won 3 out of 5 “Best Presenter Awards” and Joanna Tay Yuan Ju also won the “Special Mention Paper Award” with her paper entitled “Anticipating Issues Concerning Disputes in Statuotary Adjudication under Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act (CIPAA) in Malaysia”. The winners each received a trophy and certificate from the organizers. Besides that, UTM also won the “Best Performance Award” during the Pre-Conference Dinner through their ‘Kipas’ dance performance. It was a great achievement for UTM in this annual conference.

Inbound Academic Visit from Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta, Solo, Central Java 2nd to 8th March 2011

by webmaster FAB | Mar 11, 2011 | News, Uncategorized

A group of four docents and 34 undergraduates from Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta (UMS) made an inbound visit to Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Built Environment from 5th to 6th March 2011. This is the second visit from the Javanese, the first was in 2009. Likewise, UTM’s landscape architectural undergraduates had performed two outbound academic visits to UMS in 2008 and 2009.

Before arriving in UTM, the UMS group had spent three days in Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Melaka. In Kuala Lumpur they visited Hijjas Kasturi Architectural Office (Figure 1) and Offices of Securities Commission, in Putrajaya they toured Putrajaya Convention Center, and in Melaka they visited several places in city. Three postgraduate students, Farhana Abdullah, Juliana Johari and Siti Aminah, whom were from Green Innovation Research Group accompanied the group to guide them to visit the places in Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Melaka.

The inbound visit generated at least three outcomes: (1) exposing UMS students in architectural and urban development in cities of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Melaka, Nusajaya and Singapore, (2) attending a short design presentation on designing urban spaces, and (3) exchanging design ideas between UMSM students. In Nusajaya, UMS and UTM visited housing development of UEM, the Ledang Heights, and Johor New Administrative Center at Kota Iskandar (Figure 2). At UTM campus, three UMS students presented their urban design projects followed by two UTM students presenting their urban design project of Segamat town (Figure 3).

UTM students were presented by EARTH members whom arranged accommodation and food supplies for the Javanese guests. On the 6th March, EARTH arranged a dinner for the guests at Dr Ismail Said’s house. Several alumni were invited to the dinner and to share their working experiences in consulting or contracting offices in Singapore or Johor Bahru. UMS students and docents were much amazed by the program qualities, punctuality and orderly manner. They said that they learnt a lot on architectural language and project planning, and they were much pleased by UTM’s hospitality.

On the last day, 7th March, Farhana Abdullah, Juliana Johari and Siti Aminah accompanied the UMS students and docents to Singapore for a one-day tour. The Indonesian group stayed one night in Singapore and departed back to Solo on the following day, 8th March and reached Solo at 2:30pm local time.