Shell LiveWIRE Brunei and Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen, promote, and develop research cooperation in all fields between the two parties on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.
The signing ceremony was held virtually and witnessed by both senior representatives from Shell LiveWIRE Brunei and UTB via video conference.
Present as the Guest of Honour at the event was Professor Dr. Dayang Hajah Zohrah binti Hj Sulaiman, Vice-Chancellor of UTB.
Signing on behalf of UTB was Dr. Mohamad Saiful bin Hj Omar, Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Industry & Services), and representing Shell LiveWIRE Brunei was Dayang Hajah Rosita binti Haji Hassan, In-Country Value Manager of Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) and Chairperson of Shell LiveWIRE Brunei.
The signing was witnessed by Professor Dr. Kamariah binti Ismail, Director of Enterprise office, UTB and Awang Hj Abdul Yusrin bin DSLJ Hj Mohd Salleh, Programme Director, Shell LiveWIRE Brunei.
Prior to the signing, the event began with welcoming remarks by the witness signatories of the MoU.
Awang Hj Abdul Yusrin mentioned that Shell LiveWIRE Brunei looks forward to providing the classic offering of coaching, mentoring and entrepreneurship programmes and to also offering an avenue or platform to provide opportunities for students’ innovative ideas to be showcased with access to subject matter experts for advice and developments into prospective technopreneurships. “It is highly hoped that the MOU serves as a platform for everyone to the best practices and opportunities that are available as well as an opportunity to reinvigorate networking and expand the horizon further,” he added.
Meanwhile, Professor Dr. Kamariah stated that UTB welcomes collaboration in areas of common interests to strengthen the Quadraplex Helix to attract resources, knowledge, and technology foresight to maintain UTB as a competitive institution and source of industrial innovation. “We believe that such partnerships will bring about commercialiable quality research output through strategic grants that will help build a dynamic ecosystem with tangible results for the nation,” she said.
She is also delighted that Shell LiveWIRE has collaborated with UTB to run training, seminars, and hackathons, and initiated a few commercialisation activities among the students.
The newly signed MoU serves as a general framework to encourage cooperation and collaborations in various areas of mutual interest between UTB and Shell LiveWIRE. Both parties are particularly interested in providing entrepreneurship skills training and workshops and organising mini hackathons for undergraduates, postgraduates, and research students of the university in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
