UTAR Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering and Science (LKC FES) students emerged as champion on virtual competition titled “Pitch It Right! 2020 on 28 November 2020 via Microsoft Teams. The theme of the competition is Zero Waste: A Dream or Reality.

The winning team, named Group 8, was comprised of Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) Chemical Engineering students Allan Chong Han Lin and Ng Jian Min. They walked away with cash prize worth RM3,000, research grant allocation worth RM20,000, internship and job opportunities at the company and e-certificate for their project titled “Waste to Wealth – A Worm Business”.

Chong said the competition provided a platform to gain some experience as well as to learn more things out of academic. He also said, “The competition provided us a wider view on Chemical Engineering field. We took this opportunity to look into the waste treatment and management strategies for the waste generated in the palm oil mill. We are glad that our efforts met the requirements of the judges and at the same time we learnt from the perspective of the industry rather than hard knowledge learning. It helped to promote our critical thinking skill which was greatly utilised in designing the project with many aspects considered, especially the "commerciality.”

Moreover, Ng said the presentation slides and thoughtful consideration were the winning points that differentiated them from the other groups. She added, “Determination and perseverance are included to strengthen the reality of the project. The contents were constructed in details to accommodate the 10-minute presentation which elaborated the aspects from the maintenance of the project to the cost distribution.”

LKC FES Department of Chemical Engineering academic Ts Dr Shuit Siew Hoong said, “The competition indeed was a great platform to expose the students to the real world of Chemical Engineering. Waste treatment and management is one of the important job scopes for chemical engineers. Besides, this competition required the students to think out of the box and propose something new but practically feasible.”

He added, “First of all, I am so proud of them. Chong and Ng are very dedicated, diligent and active students. They are among the best and can work independently without much supervision. In my opinion, eye-catching proposal title and presentation slides are very important. These are the two key points that drew the audiences’ and judges’ attention in a very short time, and each team only had 10 minutes to present. Next, the confidence of the students was also a crucial factor. The confident level can be reflected during the presentation and the question-answering session. Of course, this comes by preparing well for the project.”

Furthermore, Dr Shuit also said the competition helped to enhance the students’ understanding of the field of Chemical Engineering. The ideas and knowledge that they gained throughout the competition process will be beneficial for them especially when they reached Year Four for process and plant design subject as well as final year project. Most importantly, this competition helped to further improve the soft skills and confident level of the students. 

The virtual competition was organised by IChemE, University of Nottingham Malaysia and co-organised and sponsored by Green Lagoon Technology (GLT) Sdn Bhd. The competition aimed to utilise or convert the wastes generated on-site into value-added products.