BY NOOR SYAHHIRA HADY & CLEMENT ERIK WONG
KUCHING: Sarawak Media Group (SMG) has inked a memorandum of understanding with University College of Technology Sarawak (UCTS) to collaborate on digital technology and content production.
According to SMG chief executive officer Suhaimi Sulaiman, TVS emphasised education as it was vital within the community to create and produce ideas that help boost Sarawak’s productivity as a whole.
“Under the UCTS’ School of Computing and Creative Media, we would love to share our knowledge and we would also like to learn from UCTS as part of our lifelong learning programme.
“When I look at UCTS’ School of Business and Management, we can actually work together on branding, marketing and much more,” Suhaimi said this in his speech during the signing ceremony at TVS’ office on Wednesday (Oct 28).
Suhaimi was the representative of the SMG while UCTS was represented by vice-chancellor Prof Dr Khairuddin Ab Hamid.
Since both UCTS and SMG are Sarawakian institutions, Dr Khairuddin said the MoU signified the importance of strategic academia and industry collaboration, especially in the areas of digital medium technology, creative content production and human capital in these areas for Sarawak.
“Some areas of collaboration include curriculum development of our existing and future programme. Thus, we would like to invite expert input and advisory roles from SMG.”
Along the line, he said UCTS together with SMG, would pioneer in providing customised training programmes dedicated for the digital and creative medium industry in Sarawak.
“We hope SMG can provide opportunities for our students to take part in the apprenticeship and industrial training programme so that they will gain experience and gain more knowledge in the industrial and commercial world of digital media technology.
“This collaboration could also push our research and education to another level as we could come up with joint research projects in order to enhance the digital media industry in Sarawak.”
He also added that in the area of animation content, UCTS students might be able to come up with a content of having a local character with historical background such as Upin & Ipin in West Malaysia.
“Since UCTS is located in the central region of Sarawak, it will be a melting pot of various heritage and cultures for animation content.
“We hope that we can play an important role together with SMG to promote the cultural and the heritage components of the communities from the central regions of Sarawak.”
