The innovationlabs.my , under the management of Mechanical Engineering Faculty (FKM), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia co-hosted the German-Malaysian Workshop Series with the innovationlabs.my Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) and Fraunhofer Institute for Mechatronic System Design (IEM) Germany, with the theme, “Virtual Exchanges on Innovation Management” from 16 – 18 November 2020.
The GMW Series was a part of the Research Alliance for Intelligent System in Medical Technology (RAISE-MED) funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Germany and Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) Malaysia under the International Collaboration Fund (ICF).
The German-Malaysian Workshop Series has been conducted successfully for the past nine years starting from Hannover (2012), then to Malacca (2013), Bremen (2014), Bali (2015), Paderborn (2016), Krabi (2017), Paderborn (2018), Sabah (2019) and this year virtually. UiTM, UTHM and Fraunhofer IEM signed an MOU together and conducted various activities under the MOU.
The session began with a welcoming speech by Professor Dr Mohd Shahir Shamsir Omar, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research & Innovation) UTHM who congratulated both UTHM and UiTM along with Fraunhofer IEM Germany for the commitment shown in the collaboration.
The session continued with discussions on collaboration between Malaysia and Fraunhofer: “Past, Present and Future”, was presented by Fraunhofer’s Senior Advisor (Malaysia), Professor Dato’ Dr Ahmad Ibrahim. He stressed that “Fraunhofer Germany has always been committed with research collaborations in Malaysia and has consistently offered various consultancy and advice”.
The second speaker, Mr. Willson Deng, Chairman of Singapore Manufacturing Consortium (SIMCO) and CEO of Arcstone Pte. Ltd. presented a session on “Digitalization of Manufacturing”. Mr Willson discussed the path to excellence in digitalization manufacturing which he said, “should begin with a mindset change accepting new technology and industrial revolution which should be followed by digitizing all information”.
The session then continued with four keynote speakers for the first day of the workshop.
The second day of the German-Malaysian Workshop Series 2020 was continued with a presentation on “Experience Exchange on Smart Health & Smart Manufacturing”. On the last day, Professor Dr Mohd Nazip Suratman, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) UiTM gave a welcoming speech for the participants who joined the “Train-the-Trainer Workshop”. The workshop was conducted with hands-on activities on value proposition and validation.
It can be concluded that the end goal of innovation management is a change in services or business process, and in the case of higher education, a change in how institutions collaborate with industry players on grabbing the opportunity of an idea or innovation and use it to create products industriously.
Adaptability for entering new markets using expertise in emerging technologies from various background and inter-disciplines is necessary. Innovation management will be a great catalyst for venturing innovation into the markets.