In the first week of May this year, there was a calling by the MOSTI, looking for a candidate to represent Malaysia in the ASEAN-Finland Research Seminar. The president of the Young Scientists Network asked me to apply besides few other candidates (including those non-YSN members). As one of those who received free doctoral education besides other social and financial benefits from the government of Finland, I somehow have a strong emotional attachment to this land of Santa Claus. So I did sent my application and in the middle of July, I received the news from the organizer in Finland that I was selected to represent Malaysia in this firstly ever organized event by the Finland side.
Since then, everything went very smoothly. There were five of us, speakers from Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam. We were first asked to submit our biography, topic of the talk and quotation of the flight ticket. This event, which is organized by the FinCEAL Plus (Asia division) and the Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture, provides full sponsorship for all the speakers which cover all the travel expenses and accommodation from 23-27 September 2018. Each of us need to then submit our slides of presentation latest 24 hours before the day of the seminar as the slides will be uploaded for the live telecast session throughout the event.
As for myself, I decided not to present on my particular research area as how the other speakers did (which is actually more convenient as we only have 15 minutes for the presentation), but instead presented on few niche areas of the country which fit the thematic areas that Finland is interested to collaborate with the ASEAN countries as emailed to us by the advisor of the program earlier. I divided my talk on four main topics of smart agriculture, diversified potential of biomass wastes utilization, biohydrogen from POME wastes as the latest in-trend clean energy source and abating emissions from the process industries, which is already a must-do practices in Finland and for us the ASEAN countries need to improve further.
For each topic, I introduced the background of the scenario, related issues worth to be looked into, what we Malaysia can offer and what or how Finland can work with us from different aspects, resources and expertise. As I am not very familiar with the exact facts and statistics on the industries and economy conditions in Finland, I asked for help from my former supervisor during my doctoral study. I am very fortunate that we always keep in touch together and bond so well even after 8 years I left to my home country. Upon receiving the news that I am coming over and having this responsibility on my shoulder to represent Malaysia, he was so pleased to help me with my presentation. So we had a meeting of more than 2 hours in the Malaysian Embassy Office in Helsinki, a day before the seminar day. And I am so glad we had that meeting as he provided me with all the necessary data, including the historical background on the Finland’s development from the year 1920s until now, turning into a rich and developed country. This background provides me with strong fundamental understanding hence helping me a lot in specifically highlighting how both countries, Malaysia and Finland can work well together by optimizing each other strengths and needs. That evening, the organizer brought us for a formal dinner with several other organizing committee members in a conventional local Finnish fine dining eating place – one of the best and most exclusive restaurants in town.
The day of the seminar started with welcoming speeches from Dr Jarkko Mutanen, the advisor of the FinCEAL Plus (Asia) as well as the representative from the Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland. Then we listened to several talks from the Finland side on background of the research relationship that has been established so far between Finland and the five participating ASEAN countries – presenting mainly on the figures, statistics, potentials and challenges. The seminar was also attended by the Embassy officers and researchers or scientists from all the five ASEAN countries who are currently working or studying in Finland.
The session continued with the talks by the ASEAN countries’s speakers. I was the first speaker, and to be informed by the organizer that the whole seminar session will be telecasted live to many countries in the world (the Finnish embassy offices in each participating ASEAN countries were already aware of this much earlier and prepared to watch it live), I became quite nervous – not to make any mistakes especially within a very limited time that we have. After all the speakers have done with their presentation, the seminar continued with the forum session. The title of the forum was ‘Opportunities and Challenges on Research Collaboration between ASEAN and Finland’, which was moderated by Adjunct Professor, Dr. Jari Kaivo-oja, Research Director, Finland Futures Research Centre, University of Turku, Finland. Besides the five speakers from ASEAN, there was also one panel from Finland, Mrs. Mona Arnold, a Principal Scientist in VTT. We have been given the questions for the forum a day earlier for us to prepare, and not to waste any time during the forum. Alhamdulilah, both the talk and the forum session went so well. Particularly for Malaysia, after the seminar and during lunch time, several researchers from different institutes in Finland came to express their interests in working with Malaysia including from the public research institutes like VTT and Luke as well as University of Helsinki. I also received invitation to visit their institutes for further discussions and because of that I have to extend my stay for several days more. I am very grateful that upon my justification, the Director of my centre, Assoc. Prof. Adnan Ripin from the Centre of Hydrogen Energy approved my plan and willing to help me pay for the fines as a result of changing ticket which costs me Euro 100. That evening after the seminar, we were invited for a very nice dinner by the Embassy of Vietnam.
The next day, the organizer arranged a research trip to several institutes including two labs in the University of Helsinki (Genome Research Institute and Department of Microbiology) in Viiki campus (30 minutes from Helsinki). After lunch, we visited the School of Education, University of Helsinki in Helsinki campus. I briefed the professor on the active efforts made by our Centre of Engineering Education in UTM and she is really happy to find out that Malaysia is among the key players in engineering education. However in terms of early education eg daycare, primary and secondary schools, we have a long way to go. Even a developed country like Singapore admits how our system is very different (more examination oriented) compared to the Finnish system which is way more stressing on human capital development i.e. ethics and self-survival skills especially in the early ages. Our program that day ended with a visit to Micronova, a world class research institute on nanotechnology, located in Aalto University, Otaniemi. We were amazed with the labs facilities and research infrastructures they have. This institute has produced many world class inventions including with the Google company etc and recently one of their team won a research grant from the EU worths Euro 1 billion for 10 years project.
The next day, I received an invitation by the Dean of the Chemical Engineering Lab in Aalto University, AP Dr.Pekka, to meet with him. We discussed a lot in more than an hour on researches, grant applications, academic activities etc. He really treasured the fact that I am the lab’s alumni and hence he really welcomes us to with them together (even though during my study he was not yet working in the university). He, who came from the industry (major industry in Finland called Kemira) has different way of thinking when it comes to research as he prefers the researches done to have practical elements for applications in the industries.
And on the next day, I received an invitation by Dr Ellen to visit their research institute in Viiki. The institute called Luke, is an initiative made by the government to merge several different sectors (fisheries, forestry and agricultures) under one roof for a more aligned and synergized efforts to optimize their productivity and activity (avoid overlapping and repetition). The centre is very big and now they even takes over the roles in gathering and producing annual statistics data on the relevant sectors to the government, which used to be under responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture. They have 25 branches all over Finland and a lot of resources and their research agendas really suit the Malaysian industries and nature of resources. However they mentioned that they will be totally supporting our collaboration financially, providing we can also get the same amount of matching grant (win-win situation). This is how they get and do so far with other ASEAN countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore in which they are now kind of very aggressive working with these countries due to the incentives received in terms of this matching grant or other similar schemes.
Overall, this whole trip and event was very success. As we, the ASEAN speakers selected to represent our country for this seminar, have pledged, we will do our very best in making sure that this seminar and effort initiated by the FinCEAL Plus and the Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture is not ended with the ending of the seminar event itself. Rather, this is only the beginning that has opened up many doors and opportunities for us to establish a good and fruitful collaboration between our country and the Finland side. As a note or myself, I wish to first visit the Finland Embassy Office in Kuala Lumpur to introduce myself and hence working closely together following the visit. Also I will make sure this whole visit will definitely benefit my country as well as my working institution, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
Thank you very much. Kiitos paljon!
Notes: Full video of the live telecast is available here: https://youtu.be/sMDPyZliQsY?t=1h21m16s
Reported by,
Assoc. Prof. Ir. Dr. Mimi Haryani Hassim
Figure 1: Dr Mimi Hassim with the speakers from the other 4 ASEAN participating countries.
Figure 2: Dr Mimi with the Malaysian embassy officers and Malaysian researcher in Finland (most left).
Figure 3: Official dinner organized by the Embassy of Vietnam in Helsinki.
Figure 4: With some of the speakers and participants of the seminar
Figure 5: Dr Mimi Hassim with Dr Anna (right side), the FinCEAL representative in ASEAN (to be served in Singapore soon) and Adjunct Professor, Dr. Jari Kaivo-oja, the chairman of the forum session.
Figure 6: Dr Mimi Hassim discussion with Prof Markku Hurme, a day before the seminar.
Figure 7: Dr Mimi Hassim gave her speech on a talk entitled ‘The prospects and trends of research and development in Malaysia towards sustainable economic growth and social well-being’.
Figure 8: With one of the speakers from Finland, a noble prize winner.
Figure 9: Dr Mimi Hassim answering of the questions from the participant during the Q&A session.
Figure 10: Name tag for the speakers and participants.