With the vision to be a global university of educational excellence with transformative societal impact, UTAR has been working tirelessly to bring positive impact to the community by leveraging various resources. Being a University of “by the people for the people”, UTAR has always played an active role within its university social responsibility (USR) to support and create poverty alleviation projects in correspondence with its mission in cultivating students’ sense of social responsibility. Such projects include the UTAR New Village E-Commerce Project, Kopisan Project and many more.
As of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with Alibaba.com, a leading B2B marketplace for global trading under the Alibaba Group, in 2016, UTAR has been sending staff and students from various faculties to take part in the Global E-commerce Talent (GET) certification training to broaden their reach to current and future business decision makers in the community and nationwide.
The GET programme is an initiative by Alibaba.com to train more e-commerce talent as they recognise the shortage of such expertise in the market. Therefore, Alibaba.com collaborated with multiple institutions such as universities, college, business schools and training centres across the globe to empower cross-border trading communities through training, assessment and certification, as well as career development and guidance.
UTAR is one of the founding members of the GET Network and also the first GET member in Asia. The GET programme represents the culmination of both institutions to enhance the understanding of e-commerce by UTAR students and staff as well as to benefit the Malaysian businesses. For this initiative, 30 UTAR staff became the first batch of Alibaba.com GET certified trainers while 177 UTAR students were awarded the Alibaba.com GET Preliminary Certification upon a 5-day training within the same week the MoU is signed. As of 2018, UTAR has about 851 students who have passed the test for Alibaba.com’s GET Preliminary Certification.
After the completion of the GET training, certified staff and students can then teach other staff and students. For this matter, UTAR will also be sending more staff to the Alibaba Headquarter in Hangzhou, China for training. On this note, UTAR will join hands with Alibaba.com to provide training and certification programme to SMEs around Malaysia to promote the growth of more e-commerce talents in the local business community.
The initiative of GET with UTAR was on the English language news channel of China Central Television (CCTV) where UTAR mentioned that they are practising and utilising the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP). TheeWTP is a private sector-led and all stakeholder initiative, for public-private dialogue to incubate e-Trade rules and foster a more effective and efficient policy and business environment for cross border electronic trade (eTrade) development. In one of the E-Commerce Projects, UTAR students managed to obtain sales of more than RM18, 000 in just 14 weeks’ time which proved that e-commerce has limitless potential in the future.
For Alibaba.com’s GET Programme to reach a wider community, UTAR will be supporting and providing online and offline platform to facilitate the promotion and implementation of the programme in Malaysia. Besides that, both parties will be engaging other institutions such as education centres as well as academic and industry experts for development and improvement of GET programme. This collaboration also enables UTAR to provide training and certification programmes to SMEs in Malaysia.
In July 2018, the initiative was launched officially at Guizhou, China in front of 1,500 educators and government officials where founding members of the network came together to sign an Article of Authorization. Malaysia is the founding member of the initiative and it also consists of the largest number of educational institution in one country. Besides that, this initiative also involve the Ministry of Education Malaysia and the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC). "As the first GET member in Asia, UTAR recognized and understood from the very beginning that this program could make a big difference for e-commerce businesses and talent in Malaysia. GET provides the most relevant, up-to-date courses and learnings for e-commerce and digital business success from time to time particularly as Malaysia's Digital Free Trade Zone continues to grow in importance. UTAR is excited to be taking the next step on that journey as the GET Network will serve as an excellent platform, binding UTAR closely with Alibaba Group and other forward-looking partners who understand the new e-commerce context," said UTAR Vice President for Student Development and Alumni Relations Prof Dr Choong Chee Keong.
For any collaboration to sustain and grow, constant communication is vital. Hence, on 22 October 2018, delegates from Alibaba.com Global eCommerce Talent (GET) Team and China Campus Network (CCN), China visited the UTAR Sungai Long Campus. The visit aimed to develop mutual understanding, to build rapport and to seek future collaboration and support needed from e-commerce perspective. The visit also aimed to discuss the progress following the initiative’s launch two years ago. During the meeting, UTAR also propose the establishment of GET Learning Centre within the campus.
With the collaboration between UTAR and Alibaba, it is hoped that this initiative could be one of the drivers of e-commerce development in Malaysia in terms of talents as well as infrastructure. With more young talents adapting the knowledge from other countries brought into Malaysia through Alibaba, it is without a doubt that more professional IT specialists could be nurtured in the coming years and thus improving the economy of the country. The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution also underscores the need for more talents capable in handling the latest technology so that the country is not sidelined from the global changes.
The signing of MoU between UTAR and Alibaba.com. From left: UTAR Faculty of Information and Communication Technology Assoc Prof Ts Dr Liew Soung Yue, UTAR Vice President for Internationalisation and Academic Development Prof Ir Dr Ewe Hong Tat, Alibaba.com Deputy General Manager of Operations He Dongpei and Alibaba.com Malaysia Country Manager Wang Hu
UTAR staff attending the GET training
Students attending the Alibaba.com GET programme training
The products of the new villages being made available online
Some of the new village products on display
UTAR New Village E-Commerce Project
Many of the local specialty stores have very wide range of products, but they are constrained to a very small target market due to the sellers’ lack of IT knowledge. Therefore, the objective of the UTAR New Village E-Commerce Project is to assist the local businesses to reach a wider market and boost their income.
Following the launch of the UTAR New Village E-Commerce Project to help new villagers to market their products on e-commerce platforms such as Lazada and 11Street, local products such as the Kicap Cap Tangan Bentong, CB Red Label Chicken Biscuit, CB Red Label Honey Sa Qi Ma Cookies, Bai Li Xiang Zhen Siong Chuan Rendang Sauce, Bai Li Xiang Zhen Siong Chuan Sambal Ikan Bilis and Hock Chew So Mee Shua are now easily available for online orders. While some of the local specialty stores were initially very resistant to the e-commerce technology at the beginning, they slowly began to accept the changes as they could see the results from the initiative.
Asides from that, some business owners who participated in this project commented that this online marketing platform has helped them to create greater awareness about their brand and products as more people know about their products after joining the project. They also commented that through this project, they are able to recruit some young people to work with them as they need talents in fields such as digital marketing. With that being achieved, it also accomplishes one of the UTAR New Village Project objectives which is to attract and retain young people in new villages as almost all new villages are facing the problem of aging population where most young people prefer to move to bigger cities for better career prospects.
Computer Science student Yap Ming Lake said, “This programme has provided me with relevant e-commerce knowledge and the practical real-life training I needed. I learnt a lot and I hope other students will also participate in the programme as it will benefit them greatly.”
Electronic Engineering student Lee Si Min remarked, “I am involved in the e-commerce New Village project and this project is really meaningful to the villagers because it helped them to penetrate into the market and increase their sales revenue. This is my first time having a hands-on experience in marketing on an e-commerce platform. Before this, I only know how to shop online and I was curious about the process involved in e-commerce. This programme gave me the opportunity to learn the in-depth eco-systems of e-commerce.”
Another project by UTAR, the Kopisan Project was conducted through a collaboration with the New Kopisan New Village. Supported by the Kuok Foundation, the Kopisan Project aims to turn New Kopisan New Village into an ecotourism village with the following objectives in the hopes to develop more opportunities for the locals:
A total of 2500 coffee trees contributed by the Foundation were planted in several areas including schools and the empty spaces around the houses in New Kopisan. UTAR Faculty of Science Dean Assoc Prof Dr Lim Tuck Meng conducted a workshop for the villagers to educate them on the proper technique to plant a tree and to take care of their plantations. New Kopisan was also a part of the UTAR New Village E-Commerce Project where a company named ‘Kheng Bee’ approach UTAR to assist them in promoting their instant coffee online. From this project, owner of Kheng Bee Coffee, better known as Mr.Chua, mentioned that members of the public have come to know about the business as people from other cities started to visit the coffee shop upon learning about their brand from the online platform.
In addition, the mural art projects and International Cultural Night were also conducted in New Kopisan to promote the new village itself to outsiders. For example, the Extracoffeenery Carnival 2018 conducted in November 2018 increased New Kopisan’s visibility to the public as the event included a variety of performances and games. From the carnival, the public learnt about the village and about its story. Effort has been made through online platform to promote this carnival, where a page about the carnival was created and promoted to the public. In just a few weeks’ time, the page has reached around 7,000 online social platform users around Malaysia. As the village is trying to rebrand itself as a place for ‘coffee’, the carnival has also met its objective as the theme of the carnival is also about coffee. During the carnival, there were activities such as coffee workshop where the UTAR students educate the participants on the process from harvesting to brewing a cup of coffee. Besides that, participants were also taught to make other products such as cookies and cakes.
A conference titled “Industrial Business Conference 2018: E-commerce and SMEs, a Definite Way Forward” was also jointly organised by UTAR and Fusionex International on 12 April 2018. The Industrial Business Conference 2018 aimed to highlight the prevalence of Electronic Commerce in today’s business supply chain through the impactful convergence of various cellular and broadband networks, and the continual digitisation of human activities. By participating in the conference, the participants got to understand more impacts on the increase of reach and demands of e-commerce globally, and apprise themselves of the advantages of technology and the convenience in applying e-business.
On adaption to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), UTAR has continuously worked to match the objectives of the programmes held to the definition of the SDGs. Among the 17 SDGs, UTAR has definitely achieved some of the goals in the above-mentioned projects. The most significant goals achieved include:
UTAR will continue to service the community especially those in need with support from the public and march towards its vision in becoming a global university of educational excellence with transformative societal impact.
UTAR students performing at the Extracoffeenery Carnival 2018
Group photo of the VIPs at the Industrial Business Conference
UTAR students planting trees in one of the community projects
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