PETALING JAYA – Two students of Universiti Putra Malaysia, Chan Lee Chin and Erica Lee Tze Kar have won second place and third place recently in SMART (SATU Mobility Action for Regional Talents) international competition. The challenge title of this year is to improve college students’ distance learning experiences.   

Initiated during the 2016 SATU Steering Committee Meeting, SATU-SMART 2.0 challenge is organized every year to promote cross-border education cooperation among SATU member universities. The topic of the challenge this year addresses the distanced learning resulting from the pandemic of Covid-19.

The competition lasted two months, starting from 1^st July 2020 to 13^th September 2020. Participants will be assigned to a team made up of other participants from different countries and disciplines. Each team need to identify problems faced by the online learner and develop solutions to overcome them. Submission of abstract and a 3-5 minutes’ project video is required to demonstrate each team’s proposed solutions.  

Lee Chin teamed up with the students from National Cheng Kung University, University of Indonesia, Khon Kaen University and Indian Institute of Science. They named their name as Miith by using the initial of their nationality. While Tze Kar formed a team named ICTC (international Covid Tech Connect) with students from National Tsinghua University, University of Indonesia and National Cheng Kung University.  Both Lee Chin and Tze Kar are the team leader.

“Lack of motivation and interaction can negatively impact the learning efficiency during online classes.” Lee Chin said. “With the establishment of gamification which involved augmented reality technology, we hope our team’s idea can help to improve the quality of distance learning.”

Chan Lee Chin is a PhD student from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences. He is now focusing on NDV research under the supervision of Associated Prof. Dr. Chia Suet Lin. He added that cross professional cooperation between students from the different background was the best part of this competition.

“I would like to thank my lecturer Associate Prof. Dr. Halimi Mohd Saud who encourage me to take part in this completion. I am glad to gain valuable international competition experience and build a global network.” Tze Kar said.

Erica Lee Tze Kar is also a third year student of horticulture from the Faculty of Agriculture. Her team proposed to build an interactive platform called AREDU and rental service of technology equipment (MOVEDU) to help students who lack of internet connection and tech devices. 

The prizes for second place and third place are US$1000 and US$600 respectively, and will be shared among the teammates. 

These two students will present their teams’ projects in 2020 SATU General Assembly and Steering Committee Meeting held in this coming November.

The Miith team-Lee Chin (team leader) and his teammates awarded second place in the competition.

The ICTC team-Erica Lee Tze Kar (team leader) and her teammates awarded the third place in the competition.

Date of Input: 28/10/2020 | Updated: 28/10/2020 | aslamiah