As COVID-19 continues to accelerate the need for greater innovation and technology, INTI International University & Colleges is honing future leaders from across industries through its Doctorate in Philosophy (Innovation and Technology) programme.
Dr Lai Yin Ling is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Quantity Surveying at INTI International University.
Dr. Lai Yin Ling, INTI International University’s (INTI) Dean for the Faculty of Engineering and Quantity Surveying, opines that the world will observe a heavier presence of innovation and technology post-pandemic across almost aspects of daily life and the workplace, hence there is an urgent need to hone leaders who are able to demonstrate these capabilities today.
“As a result of the pandemic, we are already witnessing businesses, governments and individuals increasingly relying on and investing in technology and innovative solutions to win the battle against the epidemic and to thrive in its aftermath,” says Dr. Lai.
“The need for synergy between mankind and technology has never been greater. With work and study from home shaping the realities of the coming months, and most likely even after 2021, the availability of numerous technologies is what continues to keep us functioning at present optimal levels,” she states.
Dr Lai explains that a few such instances can be observed through the fact that mass numbers of employees and students worldwide today are continuously relying on online learning softwares, communication devices and digital conference platforms to continue interacting, studying and working from home, while many households are also increasingly relying on online food deliveries, shopping and services as families spend more time at home.
“These are only a few instances we can observe in our daily interaction with technology, whereas the collaboration with technology and digitisation in industries is even greater. Our ‘new post-pandemic world’ may look closer to the Wawasan 2020 we envisioned as children, where we anticipated lots of automation, digitisation and the rapid adoption of technology in all forms,” Dr Lai sums.
With these current and anticipated future changes that innovation and technology is bound to create in a post-pandemic world, Dr Lai shares that INTI’s new programme will empower the leaders needed for this new reality.
“The programme enables students to integrate multiple specialties in their research, including smart manufacturing, data mining, data digitisation, and smart healthcare, amongst many others. While doing this, they will also be assessed by academicians from multi-disciplinary backgrounds throughout the course of their programme, who will serve to provide diverse insights into their course of study” says Dr Lai.
She states that the programme’s unique structure was developed as a way to facilitate wider knowledge creation in the field of innovation and technology, enabling students to develop better solutions for the workplace and in addressing global challenges, and in turn to become better leaders for our uncertain future.