Alumni business talk by DARP

UTAR Department of Alumni Relations and Placement (DARP) organised a webinar titled “Alumni Business Talk” on 30 October 2021 via Zoom. The webinar aimed to provide a great learning opportunity for entrepreneurs who are planning to develop their markets. It also aimed to equip participants with ideas to develop any business to the next level, especially on the digital platforms through the speakers’ experiences.

Present to deliver the webinar were Head of Unovate Centre-cum-Faculty of Engineering and Green Technology (FEGT) lecturer Dr Lee Sheng Chyan and Founder of Speakers’ Valley-cum-UTAR alumnus Tay Vui Kit.

Dr Lee presented on “Fostering an Entrepreneurial Culture on the Campus through Unipreneur Ecosystem”. The topic covered an introduction to Unovate Centre; the ecosystem structure of Unovate Centre; implementation of the entrepreneur ecosystem; digital entrepreneurship ecosystem and activities by Unovate Centre.

He said, “UTAR Unovate Centre is the coexistence of academy and entrepreneurship. It is a unique environment that empowers students’ entrepreneurial journeys. UTAR Unovate Centre was established on 1 January 2020 and after three months, we experienced a lockdown due to the pandemic. The pandemic gave us a good opportunity to drive entrepreneurial culture on the campus, and so we came up with the name – UTAR Unovate. We need to engage with the students, prepare them with an entrepreneurial mindset and provide innovative ideas to them.”

On the other hand, Tay, who is also Malaysia’s National Speaking Champion, presented “How the pandemic had changed the online education market”. The topics covered were how has this pandemic changed you; the journey of coping with the pandemic; transformation during the pandemic; Kubler-Ross Model; how can we move onsite speaking experience to online? and four trends on how the pandemic has changed education.

Tay started his sharing by questioning the participants “How has this pandemic changed you?”. He explained that the greatest change for him was the location of his work. Before the pandemic, he had to travel to the office to meet up with people and work. However, during the pandemic, he found that it was convenient to wake up and start his day from home.

He shared the four trends on how the pandemic has changed education, “The changes include knowledge becoming more accessible than ever— accessing top teachers in the world; people inclining towards personal growth; experiencing a variety of new learning methodologies and the rise of Ed-Tech.”

The webinar then saw an active interaction between the speakers and the participants. The talk ended with an extensive yet insightful Q&A session.