Event Management: The 101 Drill by Adjunct Professor Dato' Sri Dr. Hj. Irmohizam Ibrahim

The process of organizing an event requires strong coordination and communication among all stakeholders. Event organizers must play an important role in ensuring that the event is completely and precisely prepared. The event industry has been strongly affected by the disruptive effects of Covid-19. It has caused more than hundreds of events in Malaysia to be cancelled, whereby news of cancellations or postponements has become the new normal in 2020 and 2021. Due to this issue, the module leader of Events Project Management invited Dato’ Sri Dr. Hj. Irmohizam Ibrahim, the Group Executive Director of the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur and Taylor’s University Adjunct Professor to share his thoughts on events management from planning until execution phase.

Dato’ Sri provided three key points (visible, relevant, and reliable) of connecting and the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) challenge in the event industry. He also advised students to connect with industry professionals through social media platforms such as LinkedIn, which is a more direct and significant way to expand their career network. Dato’ Sri concluded his session with a quote, ‘blow your own trumpet’, which advises students to see things in a positive light and let themselves be known by other people. The students were quite active in asking questions after the session, and good feedback was received from the participants.

National & International Award Winners from Taylor's School of Education

Three concepts from School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences & Leisure Management, Taylor's University received Gold and Outstanding Innovative Awards at the Malaysian Technology Expo (MTE) 2021: SDG International Innovation Awards (SDGIIA) organized by PROTEMP (Professional Trade Exhibition & Meeting Planner); and received Silver awards at the Asia International Innovation Exhibition (AIINEX 2021) organized by Connecting ASIA and co-organized by The Association of Professional Researchers and Academicians (APRA) and Readers Insight Publisher.

Malaysia Technology Expo 2021: Sustainable Development Goals International Innovation Awards

Academic team from the School of Education, Taylor's University received Gold and Outstanding Innovative Awards at the Malaysian Technology Expo (MTE) 2021: SDG International Innovation Awards (SDGIIA) organized by PROTEMP (Professional Trade Exhibition & Meeting Planner). The competition was held virtually from October 25th to October 29th, 2021. The award entries were divided into 5 categories, namely Health and Well-Being, Inclusivity, Human Capital, Environment and Natural Resources, and Economic Growth. SDGII is the first in the region focused on recognizing innovations, initiatives, programmes and ideas that contribute to sustainability, eradicating poverty, improving well-being, protecting our planet, and building peace and prosperity.

The academic team from the School of Education (SoEd) represented by Ms. Hema Letchamanan and Dr. Vinothini Vasodavan presented their project titled "Project Bacabaca (Learning to Read, Reading to Learn)" which won the Gold Award and the same project was also awarded as an Outstanding Innovative project. Project BacaBaca aims to provide individual support to improve children’s language, literacy, and communication skills in Bahasa Melayu and English who are living at PPR Seri Alam.

https://mte.org.my/projek-bacabaca-learning-to-read-reading-to-learn/

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Asia International Innovation Exhibition 2021

Two concepts from Faculty of Social Sciences & Leisure Management, Taylor's University received Silver awards at the Asia International Innovation Exhibition (AIINEX 2021) organized by Connecting ASIA and co-organized by The Association of Professional Researchers and Academicians (APRA) and Readers Insight Publisher. The competition was held virtually from 15th to 17th October 2021. This event involved three categories of competition, namely, online presentation, infographic poster challenge and innovation video challenge. The competition aims to provide a platform to a multidisciplinary group of scientists and researchers from around the world where they can share and discuss ground-breaking ideas in the fields of science, technology, engineering, education, and management sciences.

A team from the School of Education (SoEd) received 2 Silver Awards for this competition under the project category for Education & Social Sciences. The award was presented to Dr. Vinothini Vasodavan, Lecturer for her project titled "Learning Difficult Content Made Easy with Mobile Augmented Reality (AR): An Innovative Pedagogy" under the category of Innovation Video Challenge. Meanwhile, Dr. Jasmine Jain, Senior Lecturer was also awarded Silver for her project titled "Talk2me: Extending Conversation and Deepening Learning" under the Infographic Poster Challenge category.

Celebration of World Tourism Day 2021: Tourism for Inclusive Growth

In conjunction with the celebration of World Tourism Day with the theme “Tourism for Inclusive Growth”, PATA Malaysia Taylor's Student Chapter (PATA MTSC) collaborated with PATA Student Chapter Temasek Polytechnic Singapore, PATA Student Chapter Lombok, PATA Student Chapter Philippines Enderun and the School of Hospitality, Tourism and Events (SHTE) in organizing a travel photo contest and cultural sharing activity among these student chapters from 10th-25th September 2021 followed by a virtual forum on ‘Tourism in Post Pandemic Era’ on 27th September 2021.

The virtual forum on ‘Tourism in Post Pandemic Era’ was opened with an impressive welcome remark by Dr. Joaquim Dias Soeiro, Head of School, School of Hospitality, Tourism and Events, Taylor's University, Malaysia. Around 170 participants attended the forum which was moderated by Dr. Puvaneswaran Kunasekaran, Senior Lecturer, School of Hospitality, Tourism and Events, Taylor’s University, Malaysia.

The panel speakers were representatives from the PATA student chapters, Kelly Christie, Bachelor of International Tourism Management Student, Taylor's University, Malaysia; Lale Rahma, Travel Arrangement Student, Lombok Tourism Polytechnic, Indonesia; Sander Fuentes, International Hospitality Management with Specialization in Hotel Administration Student, Enderun Colleges, Philippines; Le-Anne Alcantra, Hospitality and Tourism Management Student, Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore.

All panel speakers shared their views on the impact of Covid-19 on tourism and hospitality industries, the recovery strategies and new transformation that should take place in the future for tourism development in their respective countries. This was the first collaboration between these four PATA student chapters and the idea was initiated by PATA MTSC.

Prior to this forum, the student chapters organized a travel photo contest from 10th-25th September 2021 and the winners were announced during the forum. There was also a cultural sharing activity among these student chapters on 24th September 2021 to explore the diversity of culture among these four countries. These series of activities for World Tourism Day brought the student chapters together and initiated a good start for connecting with more students from around the region.