The second Pertandingan Rekacipta dan Inovasi Institusi Pengajian Tinggi Swasta (PERINTIS) was hosted by UNITEN on 16 November, 2016 and officiated by the UNITEN chairman Tan Sri Leo Moggie. PERINTIS is a biennial event that is organised in partnership with the Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovation (MOSTI) and fully supported by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) Malaysia. The event attracted a total of 141 participants from both private and public universities, and 28 entries from science schools across the nation. The PERINTIS competition, first hosted by Infrastructure University Kuala Lumpur (IUKL) in 2014 was established to showcase innovations and inventions from private universities specifically and other institutions of higher learning in Malaysia. With the motto being “BETTER BRIGHTER FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURE”, this year’s competition managed to bring out the best innovators among students and academics alike that went on to showcase a wide range of cutting-edged innovations at the exhibition.
At PERINTIS 2016, IUKL was represented by two teams from the Faculty of Engineering & Technology Infrastructure (FETI) and a team from the Faculty of Business & Accounting (FBA). Both teams from FETI managed a fantastic job of bringing home silver and bronze medals for their innovations in soil erosion & landslide prediction systems. IUKL’s silver medallist led by Dr. Mohd. Sofiyan Sulaiman showcased an innovation called “Transport of Bed Load Sediment: Local Scale vs Reach Scale” and proved the functional application of predicting accurate riverbank erosions that leads to disastrous flooding. Whereas the team led by Puan Noorbaya Binti Mohd. Salleh demonstrated the successful application of landslide predictions using the new “ROAR” index developed by IUKL’s very own Vice-Chancellor Prof. Dr. Roslan Zainal Abidin. The team from FBA led by Prof. Dr. Noor Saadah Zaina Abidin also clearly managed to excite the crowd despite not winning a medal through their lively interaction with industry players on the effective use of coirs from coconuts. Kudos to all IUKL teams for their fine achievements & a job well done. PERINTIS 2018 is next and will be hosted by the Malaysian Science University (MSU).