The UCSI University team receiving the award and prize from Dato’Seri Mohamend Khaled Nordin, the Minister of Higher Education, after taking first runner up during the national MSC Malaysia – IHL Business Plan Competition in Kuala Lumpur.

Kuala Lumpur, 22 March, 2011 - Students from UCSI University have won first runner up and RM7,000 in a national business competition to encourage entrepreneurship. Students Mr Foo Dun Fei, Mr Charles Teh and Ms Ng Shing Leng beat out nearly 30 competitors to take the prize during the MSC Malaysia – IHL Business Plan Competition (MIBPC) held at the Hilton Kuala Lumpur hotel. The annual competition is held among Malaysian institutions of higher education to create a new generation of technology entrepreneurs. 

“We feel happy because we have gained a lot of knowledge through this competition,” Mr Foo said. “This win let us learn something that if we are not making mistakes, we are not taking risks, and that means we are not going anywhere.”

The students won in the competition’s “Business Plan” category, which required teams to submit a formal business plan plus prototype for an information and communications technology or bioinformatics idea. UCSI University’s Team “One Touch” developed an energy-harvesting device designed to conserve and convert waste energy into electrical energy to recharge smart phones. The team said they spent more than six months developing the project, including putting in 18-20 hour-days right before the competition.

The project began as part of the University’s internal BizPlan Competition that finished in November. The competition, organised by the University’s Faculty of Management and Information Technology and its Centre of Excellence for Research, Value Innovation and Entrepreneurship, served as a pre-cursor to the national competition and involved a series of business workshops and competitions to encourage entrepreneurship with students and staff at UCSI University. 

UCSI University Vice Chancellor Dr Robert Bong said the win was a demonstration of the University's commitment to promoting innovation and entrepreneurship.
 
“At UCSI University, we are committed to not just research but research with a purpose,” he said. “Through this competition, our students were able to think creatively to address real life problems with real life solutions. I'm very proud of our winning team and for all the hard work they've put into their project. I expect to see great things from them in the future.”

As first runner up in the national competition, UCSI University is only one of two Malaysian universities to go on as a semi-finalist to compete in the PolyU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Student Challenge Hong Kong Polytechnic University in June. The international business competition includes participants from more than 70 universities from all over the globe, including some of the world’s most prestigious institutions such as Princeton University, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Melbourne, the University of Nottingham, Singapore Management University and National Taiwan University.