from left to right: Alicia Chng, Head of Careers Advisory Service at UNMC, Jing Yang, Jackie Chan, Wei Jun, and Willis Yip at prize presentation ceremony
Students from The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC), recently won the 2013 GE Challenge Malaysia inaugural university challenge.
The 4 member team, Team JYJY emerged as the winners by applying their technical skills and business acumen to come up with an energy efficient system to promote sustainability and to deliver cost savings for residential, commercial and industrial developments.
The team project was to introduce energy efficient practices and their proposed JY Cloud, is a system that identifies appliances which have high consumption of electricity. The data collected by JY cloud was channeled to manufacturers of electrical items to conduct research and development to create energy efficient products.
The team comprises of undergraduates from economics and engineering, namely Tan Jing Yang, Chan Guan Yuan, Willis Yip Kwok Chuo and Ng Wei Jun.
“I am delighted that four of our UNMC students emerged victorious in a competition which was targeted at giving young and aspiring entrepreneurs and future leaders a platform to innovate and to provide ingenious green solutions to promote sustainability and cost savings for residential, commercial and industrial developments,” said Dr. Kenny Wong, adviser of the team and Programme Director of Undergraduate Programmes at UNMC.
2013 GE Challenge Malaysia
The inaugural competition was opened to engineering and business undergraduates from public and private universities across Malaysia to promote innovation in the area of energy efficiency. It was organised by General Electric (GE) in collaboration with Agensi Innovasi Malaysia (AIM), a statutory body driving the nation on achieving the status of a high-income nation.
The competition drew 108 teams from leading universities in Malaysia and the grand finalists were teams from UNMC, Universiti Pertanian Malaysia, University Malaysia Sabah, Universiti Teknologi Petronas and Universiti Tenaga Nasional. At the grand finals, teams presented their proposals to a panel of judges from AIM, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), Greentech Malaysia and GE.
“We were excited when it was announced that our team was the winner, the competition was close as the other teams put up a good fight as well,” said Dr. Kenny Wong.
Team JYJY was awarded RM3,000 and opportunities to undertake an internship with GE Malaysia as well as to ‘job shadow’ as a GE leader for one day. The first runner up, Team Energive from Universiti Teknologi Petronas and second runner up, Team Silent Assassins from Universiti Putra Malaysia walked away with RM2,000 and RM1,000 prize money respectively.
“The Team JYJY has successfully applied their technical (engineering) skills and business acumen in this winning idea, and I believe that they are real change agents, equipped with creative ideas that will help to promote growth, change and competitiveness in Malaysia. I am sure a great future lies ahead for them,” Dr. Kenny Wong said.
“We are really grateful for this opportunity to showcase our ideas and to be able to mingle with prominent business personalities. We thoroughly enjoyed the entire process as a group of close friends. We are grateful to our adviser Dr. Kenny Wong who provided valuable mentoring and constant encouragement,” said Chan Guan Yuan on behalf of Team JYJY.
About Nottingham University Business School
Nottingham University Business School (NUBS) is one of the leading international business schools in the world, with established campuses in Malaysia and China. The School aims to enhance business and management knowledge and practice in a responsible and sustainable way using its global presence.
NUBS Malaysia has had more than a decade’s experience in providing international quality teaching and scholarship in various areas of business, management and finance through its portfolio of Foundation, Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Doctoral programmes.
About GE
General Electric, or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in the USA. The company operates through four segments: Energy, Technology Infrastructure, Capital Finance and Consumer and Industrial.
In 1896, General Electric was one of the original 12 companies listed on the newly formed Dow Jones Industrial Average. After 117 years, it is the only one of the original companies still listed on the Dow index, although it has not been on the index continuously.
