Sarawak govt, Swinburne University collaborate to develop research ecosystem

KUCHING: The state government is working closely with Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak Campus to develop a research ecosystem as it aims to be a worldclass campus of 5,000 students, said Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg.

Abang Johari, who is also the pro-chancellor of Swinburne Sarawak, said it had created a significant social and economic impact on the state, generating around 1,400 jobs and RM150 million per annum to the Sarawak economy and producing about 700 graduates each year.

The chief minister, who is currently leading a state delegation on a five-day working visit to Australia, was conferred the university’s honorary doctorate in recognition of his long and outstanding service to Sarawak, at the ceremony held in Melbourne in the Australian state of Victoria, yesterday.

“Australia has been a place where many Sarawakians come to study and even our two previous chief ministers were educated in Australia under the Colombo Plan,” he said in his speech text which was made available by the Chief Minister’s Department, here.

“Sarawak’s association with Australia has endured to this day, and, when we in Sarawak, were looking for partners to assist us in the development of our tertiary education and human resource development, Australia, Swinburne in particular, was there to lend us a helping hand to train and develop our human resource potential as part of our overall transformation plan,” he added.

Since being established in 2000, he said 7,000 students had graduated from Swinburne Sarawak, with 65 per cent of them from the state, providing a strong mechanism for developing and retaining local talent.

“When I took over the helm as chief minister in 2017, I had the conviction that Sarawak has to move away from conventional economy to one that is driven by digital technologies, which present vast opportunities for us beyond the shores of Sarawak,” he said.

Abang Johari said the state government was setting aside a big budget to upgrade the digital infrastructure to make 4G services available in all parts of Sarawak to support its vision of turning the state into a strong digital economy by the year 2030.

With Sarawak also still having large tracts of land which landowners could develop to produce food, he was confident that through smart and precision farming, coupled with good marketing strategies and logistics, the state could penetrate the Asian food market and become a net exporter of food. - Bernama