Govt serious in producing skilled workers

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TOKEN OF APPRECIATION: Huda (left) presents a memento to Prof Dr Zulikha Jamaludin while Abang Wahap looks on.

KUCHING: The state is serious in its desire to produce highly skilled and innovative human capital through excellent education.

Datuk Bandar of Kuching North City Commission (DBKU) Datuk Abang Abdul Wahap Abang Julai said that good education was vital in strengthening the social, economic and political structures of the state and nation.

“We have managed to transform Kota Samarahan into a ‘Town of Knowledge’ that is the main education hub of Sarawak.

“Kuching has two main public universities – Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) and a campus of Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) – apart from several private colleges,” he said when officiating at the 4th International Conference on Computing and Informatics 2013 (ICOCI 2013) here yesterday.

The three-day conference, which began yesterday, is jointly organised by Universiti Utara Malaysia’s (UUM) School of Computing, UUM College of Arts and Sciences, UUM Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business and Unimas’ Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology.

In order to stimulate economic growth and development, Abang Wahap said the state government was focusing on high impact projects which included industrial development, roads, water supply and even educational development to stimulate the economic growth.

On the computing subject, he said that computing was the best medium to strengthen the communities with the latest information and knowledge in today’s globalised world.

“We must be fully equipped with information technology to improve our business, face opportunities and challenges in the near future.

“People the world over are now interconnected and it is common for people to share their interests and goals towards achieving sustainable communities.”

UUM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Mohamed Mustafa Ishak said the conference was one of the university’s most important initiatives to enhance research collaboration.

He said the conference had proposed a theme ‘Computing Towards Developing Smart Community’ which was very suitable in light of the current trend in information technology.

“Mobile computing, smart phones and social networks are the emerging IT trends that have tremendous impact on the people’s lives.

“People can easily get connected with each other, perform business transactions from anywhere and at any time and always be updated with news on the current development in the country and around the world,” Mohamed said in a text of speech read out by UUM Dean of School of Computing, Associate Prof Dr Huda Ibrahim.

He said the peer-review process had ensured that the articles selected for presentation and published in the conference proceedings were of the highest quality.

“Eighty speakers will present their research progress and findings at the conference,” said.