Polytech Nantes students (from left) Jean Portalis, Alban Sicard, Omar Diouf and Florent Sabadie sharing a light moment during their second day at UCSI University.

Kuala Lumpur: UCSI University’s (UCSI) Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Built Environment (FETBE) recently welcomed four fourth-year Polytech Nantes students from France to pursue a three-month-long cooperative internship programme at UCSI. Polytech Nantes, known as a French ‘Grande Ecole’, is the graduate engineering school of the University of Nantes. In France, 'Grandes Écoles' are higher educational institutions that are prestigious and very selective, their graduates occupy managerial and executive positions in the industry. 

With backgrounds in electronic and digital technologies and computer science, the Polytech Nantes students were tasked to work on the IoT and App Design under the supervision of UCSI FETBE’s lecturers Dr Rodney Tan Hean Gay, Dr John Tan Teng Hwang, Dr Susan Tiang, Dr Mastaneh Mokayef, Manickam Ramasamy and Chuah Eng Yew. 

The interns also participated in UCSI students’ Capstone project — development of a 2D plotting platform with an interchangeable head that allows various plotting task and an energy meter recording system that interface with any Modbus compatible energy meter — under the supervision of Dr Rodney. A collaboration such as this allows both UCSI students and Polytech Nantes students an opportunity to exchange technical knowledge as well as improve their communication skills. It was also an opportunity for cultural exchange. 

As one of the leading private university in Malaysia, UCSI is renowned for their extensive collaboration with many of the world’s best universities — the Ivy League, Russell Group, Universitas 21 and Australia’s Group of Eight — providing invaluable opportunities for students and staff to contribute to the pursuit and advancement of knowledge around the world. 

According to Assistant Professor Dr John Tan Teng Hwang, the Head of Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering in FETBE, Polytech Nantes will be receiving an undergraduate student of UCSI in September 2017 for a duration of two and a half months. Supported by BASF — the largest chemical producer in the world with over 300 production sites worldwide — the internship programme will provide the student an opportunity to conduct research in the area of renewable energy under the joint supervision of UCSI’s Dr Mastaneh and University of Nantes’s Professor Razban Haghighi Tchanguiz and Dr Ahmed Ould El Moctar. 

This is the second time UCSI welcomed students from Polytech Nantes.