PENANG, 18 May – Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) won 6 gold medals, during the 20th Invention, Innovation and Technology Exhibition (ITEX) in Kuala Lumpur recently. Two of the inventions that won the Gold Medal also received the Special Award.
Apart from bringing home gold medals, two women researchers from USM, that is, Prof. Asma Ismail and Dr. Widad Ismail did USM proud by receiving the special award at this international research exhibition.
Prof. Asma won two special awards, that is, the IENA Special Award for Best Invention and the JIPA Award for the Best Invention in Biotechnology while Dr. Widad won the WIPO Best Woman Inventor Award.
Prof. Asma, who is also the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) was honoured for her invention, PCRDisk while Dr. Widad’s invention, that is, Radio Frequency Identification Tracking & Monitoring won the Gold for the second time within a year in a research exhibition.
There were 17 research products by USM that were exhibited at ITEX ’09 and USM was successful in winning 6 Gold, 9 Silver and 1 Bronze. Prof Abdul Latif Ahmad contributed a Gold Medal with his invention, Ncmem-Indigenous Biomedical Lateral Flow Membrane.
The three other Gold Medal winners were Prof. Ahmad Fauzi Mohd Noor (Soft Magnesium Ferrite Nanocrystallites for Microwave Frequency Range), Dr. Wan Ahmad Jaafar Wan Yahaya (Persuasive Multimedia Learning Environment) and Dr. Sam’an Malik Masudi (Nano Hybrid Endodontic Sealer).
ITEX 2009, organized by the Malaysian Invention and Design Society (MINDS) was launched by Fadillah Yusof, the Science, Technology and Innovation Deputy Minister. Also present was the President of MINDS, Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dr. Augustine Ong.
An annual event, ITEX is a platform for universities, research institutions, investors, corporations and others to showcase their products and seek business opportunities for their respective inventions and innovations.
First introduced in 1989, ITEX became well-known throughout the world and successfully showcased more than 600 inventions, both local and international. The participating countries include Iran, Korea, Arab Saudi, Thailand, Taiwan and others.
