Red letter day for new crop of Cyberjaya graduates

Anuwar presenting Mohd Nizom (right) with the Honorary Professor of Financial Innovation.

IT WAS a weekend full of celebrations as 1,038 graduates received their scrolls at University of Cyberjaya’s 12th convocation ceremony.

Seven individuals were also given awards for their contributions in business, education, human resources, pharmacy, finance and science.

Among them was Tan Sri Vincent Tan of Berjaya Group, who received the Honorary Doctor of Business Innovation.

In his acceptance speech, Tan said, “I am very honoured and grateful to be conferred this honorary doctorate by University of Cyberjaya.

“To all graduates, I am sure you will be out looking for jobs. I encourage some of you to be brave and also consider taking up the challenge of establishing your own businesses.”

The university also conferred an honorary doctorate to Assoc Prof Annette Foley of Federation University, Australia.

Among those who received honorary professorships were Inland Revenue Board chief executive officer Datuk Dr Mohd Nizom Sairi, Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur’s Dr Arunachalam Nagappan, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan’s Prof Dr Balakrishnan Parasuraman and Halal Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Standards Committee member Amrahi Buang.

Doctor, entrepreneur and former astronaut Datuk Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Al Masrie received the Honorary Master of Medical Science.

The institution honoured these individuals for their tireless efforts within their fields.

The Alumni Excellence Award was given to 2014 alumna Dr Alia Nadhirah Ahmad Fakhri, whose significant achievements included creating the Integrated Bed Entry and Database System (IBEDS), a database project on the data management of Covid-19 patients.

This system efficiently manages patient data with real-time reporting using Microsoft Excel and was implemented in Pahang’s largest quarantine centre with 1,400 beds.

Her invention also won the Winner of the Jury’s Choice Award at the JomLaunch Programming Conference 2021, which was a national conference of ICT professionals.

Dr Alia said, “During the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, I was an administrator in the operational room for one of the Covid-19 quarantine centres in Pahang.

“The situation was overwhelming as we had to input, analyse and update the data for bed assignments, which was a time-consuming process.

“To increase efficiency and productivity, I came up with IBEDS, which resulted in the reduction of work processes from hours to minutes by cutting down on errors and duplication of data.”

The two-day ceremony was conducted in three sessions and officiated by the university chancellor Emeritus Professor Tan Sri Anuwar Ali.