UTAR and Alibaba Cloud (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd officially signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on 11 August 2020 at Sungai Long Campus to transform the cloud computing education offerings for students and staff.

Attendees of the MoU were UTAR President Ir Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat, Malaysia Alibaba Cloud Intelligence General Manager Jordy Cao, UTAR Vice President for Internationalisation and Academic Development Ir Prof Dr Yow Ho Kwang, Alibaba Cloud (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd Country Marketing Leader Angie Ng, Division of Community and International Networking Director Assoc Prof Dr Lai Soon Onn, Alibaba Cloud (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd Associate Online Marketing Manager Elaine Ooi, Faculty of Information and Communication Technology (FICT) Deputy Dean of Academic Development and Undergraduate Programmes Ts Dr Cheng Wai Khuen, FICT lecturer Ts Tan Teik Boon and staff.

The MoU is part of the Alibaba Cloud Academic Empowerment Program (AAEP) developed for local universities. It aimed to provide advanced cloud computing technology for students and staff. With easy access to high-quality learning resources, UTAR students can pursue Alibaba Cloud certification and stand a chance to intern the company after the successful completion of the course.

The collaboration also aimed to empower digital talents and tech professionals through Alibaba Cloud’s Elastic Compute Service (ECS) and Data Transfer courses, overhauling the current Cloud Computing curriculum at the university. Both parties will jointly promote cloud computing by conducting collaborative seminars, guest lectures, workshops and training activities to lay a strong technical foundation for the young generation.

Speaking at the ceremony, Prof Ewe said, “We are indeed privileged and honoured to be working together with Alibaba Cloud Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a global leader in cloud computing and artificial intelligence which provides reliable and secure cloud computing and data processing capabilities. On behalf of the University, I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt appreciation to Alibaba Cloud Malaysia because this collaboration will help us prepare our students for the Digital Cloud Transformation journey. We are proud to be part of the Alibaba Cloud Academic Empowerment Program and look forward to this collaboration for greater educational benefits for our students as well as information and knowledge exchanges between Alibaba Cloud and UTAR.”

He added, “When cloud technology was introduced, it became the trend of the future. It is so convenient for us to access all the required data at any place and anytime without carrying bulky laptops with us.”

On the other hand, Jordy Cao expressed his gratitude to UTAR for the warm welcome and great hospitality. He gave a brief introduction to Alibaba Cloud by introducing their well-known cloud computing services. He said, “It is pivotal that students and the teaching staff are getting the best and latest cloud computing curriculum, as well as access to experienced professionals to help them validate and clarify their theoretical knowledge. Alibaba Cloud has been dedicated to providing the best-in-class cloud services to our customers and we will deliver exactly these experiences to UTAR to help students get the best learning resources in the industry so they can better seize the opportunities provided by the digital era.”

He emphasised, “It is a good start for everyone to practise new norm in the post-Covid-19 world. With the experience of Alibaba Cloud, I strongly believe that students and teachers will greatly benefit from this.”

The signing ceremony ended with a souvenir exchange between Prof Ewe and Jordy, followed by a group photography session.