General Electric set to expand projects in Sarawak
MIRI: General Electric ( GE) Malaysia’s ‘GE to Sarawak’ strategies will see the corporation work with more education institutions, small and medium enterprises, and the state government.
GE Malaysia chief operating officer Azli Mohamed said GE was now formalising its relationship with Universiti Malaysia Sarawak ( Unimas) and would likely announce the tie-up in the first quarter of next year.
“This is part of our projects that would specifically be benefitting Sarawak, and we look at it in two ways – to get the student involvement and to translate it to something meaningful for Sarawak,” he told The Borneo Post during a recent trip for SMK Subis students to Kuala Lumpur sponsored by GE and AirAsia Berhad in partnership with Teach for Malaysia (TFM).
“We have a programme in partnership with a Sarawak government agency soon, looking purely on sourcing and supply chain in Sarawak.
This is part of our projects that would specifically be benefitting Sarawak, and we look at it in two ways – to get the student involvement and to translate it to something meaningful for Sarawak.
With multiple projects in power and oil and gas, there is a strong need to have more things being done in Sarawak and we also have been engaging directly with Minister of Public Utilities Dato Sri Dr Stephen Rundi Utom on many of his initiatives, and one of his strongest initiatives that we are vehemently supporting is rural water and rural electrification.”
On sponsoring the trip for the SMK Subis students, Azli said it was the first of GE’s many projects.
“I was blown away by the students’ presentation and curiosity on several different topics, especially on aviation technology and when I saw the aircraft model they made with the AirAsia logo, I took a picture of it and sent it to Tan Sri Tony Fernandes,” he said, adding that the students had such limited resources.
“Tony took notice and from there on we designed a trip that would showcase the different possibilities that the students could explore in the future.”
A total of 20 students from the school took part in the three- day trip.
They visited the GE headquarters, GE iCenter – one of three oil and gas monitoring and diagnostics centres globally, and GE Engine Services Malaysia (GEESM) in Subang.
Student Gabriel Rentap, 16, said the trip was an incredible experience.
“I am so grateful that my teacher (TFM fellow Victor Lam) chose me to be on this trip as it teaches me a lot and seeing all these technologies excites me. I will definitely share this experience with my friends at school,” he said.
Meanwhile, GE was among the first supporters of TFM and contributed to its initial funding.
“Every year, whenever TFM Week is being held, we will always participate and try to send at least one representative from GE to teach in the underprivileged schools and when I got the chance to do it, I felt it was perfect timing as we were also doing a lot of things in Sarawak,” said Azli.
During TFM Week, top civil servants, public figures and corporate leaders teach alongside TFM fellows at a pre-identified high-need school under the programme backed by the Ministry of Education.
TFM is an independent, notfor-profit organisation set up in 2010.
It enlists Malaysia’s most promising future leaders in its mission to end education inequity.
The TFM Fellowship is a two-year, full-time and fullypaid leadership development programme modelled after the extremely successful Teach for America initiative.
TFM is one of 19 partners of the prestigious global education network Teach for All.
Azli Mohamed, GE Malaysia chief operating officer