UTAR Faculty of Engineering and Green Technology (FEGT) in collaboration with the IEM Perak Branch successfully conducted an Engineering Dialogue session on 28 May 2022 for some 60 participants including secondary school students, their parents and teachers from Kampar.

Themed Breaking into Engineering at Young Age, the forum was conducted at UTAR Kampar Campus.

The event started with a lab tour of all the FEGT laboratories with a hands-on demonstration. Throughout the tour, FEGT showcased various laboratories’ experiments such as 3D printing, advanced analysis characterisation for water/wastewater treatment, robotics arm and many others.

The participants then proceeded to FEGT’s Lecture Theatre EDK 1 for a simple opening ceremony, which was followed by an engineering dialogue session. The event was officiated by Chairman of IEM Perak Branch Dato’ Sri Ir Dr Liew Mun Hon and Dean of FEGT Ir Prof Dr Ng Choon Aun.

In his welcome remark, Prof Ng enthused, “The aim of this event is to provide an avenue for all secondary school students to get to know engineering courses better, in particular, courses offered under FEGT. It also acts as a great opportunity for the students to mingle and network with industry engineers to know more about the life of an engineer.” Prof Ng also took the opportunity to express his greatest gratitude to IEM Perak Branch and Dato’ Sri Liew for financially supporting the event and always being the main support to FEGT.

Meanwhile, Dato’ Sri Liew shared with the participants about his personal journey and passion to become an engineer. He also shared the importance of an engineer for the development of a country. He encouraged the participants to take up engineering courses and feel proud to be an engineer because it is a professional career.

Before the start of the engineering dialogue session, FEGT introduced the participants to the various engineering, technology and science programmes offered by FEGT.  Then, the event was followed by an engineering dialogue session where they saw two practising engineers and one lecturer as the speakers. The speakers were Manager of Maju PBJ Sdn Bhd Ir Ts Darren Chin Woon Kheong, UTAR FEGT lecturer Ts Dr Tan Ming Hui and Sales Engineer of Maccaferri (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd Derekthy Choong Kah Jian.

The dialogue session focused on the future and the career pathway of an engineer in Malaysia, and also the global market. The speakers shared what is needed to be an engineer and how an engineer copes with the current rapid development, especially in the advancement of technology. During the dialogue session, the speakers also shared their personal experiences and their engineering journeys to inspire the younger generation to take up engineering courses and become an engineer.

Some school students, namely Lee Zixuan, Lee Le Si and Phang Jun Shen shared their experiences and said, “Thank you UTAR for organising an inspiring forum session for us. The session was beneficial and we gained a lot of knowledge from the forum. Thanks to it, we now have a good concept of the field of engineering. We are really fortunate to be part of this forum.”

The faculty would like to express the greatest gratitude to IEM Perak Branch for their support and sponsorship of the light refreshment during the event.