Phase 2 handover ceremony > p10 - Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman

6UTARHORIZONAUGUST 2012From Talks to ForumsTo be Innovative, Don’t Start with CreativityIn conjunction with UTAR 10th anniversary, the University and Malaysia Mental LiteracyMovement jointly organised a public talk titled ‘To be Innovative, Don’t Start with Creativity’.The talk was delivered by Dr Yew Kam Keong, or better known as Dr YKK, (picture) on 7 July 2012 at UTARPetaling Jaya Campus.Dr YKK explained that creativity is getting new ideas and making connection while invention is creatingsomething with our ideas whereas innovation is all about producing benefits and profits from our ideas.He also cited the three primary techniques of creativity, which are fantasy and imagination, breaking rulesand forcing connection. Application of these three techniques will lead a person to be creative. In orderto be innovative, an individual should be curious, frequently ask broad questions and hunt for the keycomponent.Quoting the late American entrepreneur Steve Jobs, the speaker said “good artist copy; great artist steal”. He continued, “Whereinnovation brings new things to the world, imitation spreads them; where innovators break the old mould, imitations perfect the newone; while innovators can win big, imitators often win bigger. Indeed what looks like innovation is often actually artful imitation”.Joy of PhysicsProf Dr Raghavan Jayakumar (picture), a physics expert fromthe United States spoke on the joy of learning and applyingphysics on 28 June 2012 at UTAR Perak Campus.Prof Jayakumar, who has published over 50 journals onPhysics and engineering-related topics, said, “All theories ofphysics are related to everything around us. Feel the joy ofdiscovering your surroundings. Physics is found in windmills,blood flow, cricket,football, badminton,friction, traffic flow,banking and financeand archeologypaleontology.Challenging the UnknownChemistry seminar by IKMFour delegates from InstituteKimia Malaysia (IKM) whowere led by Chairman HwangChin Hor, visited UTAR PerakCampus on 6 July 2012. Othervisitors were auditor HoongSeng Hong, committeemember Jimmy Thong KarCheong and Captain ChanWeng Kwai.A short talk by Hoong (picture)during the visit gave studentsinsight into the field ofchemistry and its various jobfunctions in other industriessuch as analytical chemistry, agricultural chemistry, biochemistry,chemical engineering, food and flavor chemistry, forensic science,geochemistry, green chemistry and semiconductor chemistry.Besides explaining the benefits of being a member of IKM, Hoongalso briefly discussed the role of chemists in helping to overcomeglobal issues such as global warming.“Let me take you to space,” Dr Mamoru Mohri (picture) told about 100 students and staff who came for his talktitled “Challenging the Unknown”, which was organised by the Astronomy Club at UTAR Kuala Lumpur Campuson 13 July 2012.By that he meant sharing his experience and some still images and videos that were captured when he was inspace in his NASA space shuttle mission as the first Japanese scientist to go into space.Dr Mohri said everything floated and he could swim in air as he presented videos of the aerobic and spinningroutines he executed in mid air in the space shuttle.He also showed videos of some of the experiments that he had carried out in the zero-gravity condition in thespacecraft he was in, which included blowing water bubbles, examining the properties of water, colliding water bubbles with metalball and investigating the changing size of human body parts in space.“The most interesting part of the talk is that before he showed us the outcome of the experiments, he would walk around and askedthe audiences what result they expected, forcing everyone’s brain into high gear,” said Teoh Hui Chieh, a lecturer at UTAR Faculty ofScience and Engineering, who was also the emcee of the talk.Dr Mohri concluded his talk by taking the audience around the Earth as viewed from space through his videos, and finally the Earthas seen from the Moon through Kaguya, a Japanese spacecraft.