Encouraging an Ideation Culture Among High Schoolers Through Dynamic Events

July 9, 2018

Engaging high school students in a variety of initiatives to enhance their community responsibility, environmental awareness and entrepreneurial abilities, INTI International University & Colleges recently organized a series of competitions to spark great ideas along the way.

 

Held in collaboration with a number of INTI’s industry partners, the events provided high school students across the Klang Valley with the opportunity to network with employers while tackling some of today’s hot topics like waste management, bullying, depression and even the future of entrepreneurship. It was an exuberant showcase of brilliance and innovative ideas by these young people who impressed many of the industry judges during the course of the competitions.

The first competition held at INTI’s metropolitan campus in Subang was a bid to create meaningful conversations on environmental awareness. The INTI National Science Challenge flourished into a dynamic exchange of ideas and solutions on ways to moderate and combat waste management, a hot issue that’s plaguing Malaysia.

Participants of the one-day camp, aged between 15 and 16 years, worked in groups of 10 to come up with creative ways of curbing one of the three elements of waste management, namely plastic, composting and e-waste. Guided by INTI’s faculty members, the students were given the opportunity to present their ideas to INTI’s participating industry partners from Sony Malaysia, General Electric (GE) and EcoWorld in a bid to win prizes for the best ideas.

The winner of this competition was a group of students from SMK Kota Kemuning who walked away with individual scholarships worth RM 10,000 and a Sony headset each. The first and second runner ups of the competition who received RM6,000 and RM3,000 worth of individual scholarships respectively went to students from SMK Catholic PJ and another group of students from SMK Kota Kemuning. Beyond presenting their ideas, the students also put together a working paper of their proposal on how they foresee the possible implementation of waste management at the community level by the relevant government bodies.

A second competition, titled INTI Caring Youth Challenge 2018, encouraged students to explore contemporary social issues such as depression, homelessness and bullying. The students were given three themes, namely ‘Defeat Depression’, ‘Homeless Epidemic’ and ‘Stop Bullying in School’, of which they were required to come up with a project proposal to find a solution or preventive method for the problem.

Pre-selecting their themes and doing background research on their topics prior to the competition, the 15 groups of students came well prepared with their business proposals to impress the judges from Maybank, Mah Sing, Malaysia SME and Qu Exchange to win the coveted individual scholarships being offered. Five teams were narrowed down and presented their business plans through creative PowerPoint presentations.

 

Winners from this competition were 10 students from SMK Seri Saujana who received individual scholarships with RM10,000 each. The group tackled the subject of Cyber-Bullying which focused primarily on teenagers and young adults. Putting their creative caps on, the students presented an idea of a mobile App which allows victims of cyberbullying to seek help and guidance from professionals and authorities.

Meanwhile, first and second runner up teams from SMK Seafield and Sri Emas International School walked away with individual scholarships worth RM6,000 and RM3,000 respectively. Both teams focused on homelessness in which the first runner up proposed to tackle the epidemic through fundraising and creating communal shelters while the third runner up team proposed education as a solution to overcome the issue.

“I applaud INTI for organizing such a meaningful event which provided young high school students the opportunity to practice their creativity, entrepreneurial and presentation skills. I was pleasantly surprised to see the quality of the projects put together and presented by the groups of students. This event has clearly demonstrated that young Malaysians are indeed creative and talented, and all they needed was the right platform to share their thoughts and ideas. I look forward to more events like these which help young people gain opportunities to showcase their potential,” shared fellow judge, Wayne Lim, Group Chief Executive Officer of Malaysia SME Media Group and the Founder of Qu Exchange.
Fellow judge, Cheng Yee Mei, Head of Talent Acquisition and Acceleration, People Department from Mah Sing was equally impressed with the students’ efforts in bringing life to their projects, sharing that: “The students demonstrated a good thought process in their ideas, from ideation to deployment. The way they presented clearly showed passion and commitment; key differentiators to being great leaders, which are values that I personally subscribe to.”

The third part of these series of events was the INTI National Entrepreneurship Challenge held at INTI’s city campus, INTI International College Kuala Lumpur. Over 200 high school students participated in the competition in which they were tasked to take on portfolios of Fortune 500 companies with a mission of creating and innovating a product or service for the company’s next major campaign. Simulating a business case challenge concept, students worked on case studies of companies like AirAsia, Apple and even TNB.

Brainstorming in teams, the students developed a 10-minute presentation to impress the judges who consisted of INTI’s faculty and senior management. Of the 25 teams that presented, only five were then selected to the final round where each team was given one hour to analyze a business case study on Proton and have a representative to present their findings and solutions to the panel of judges.

Students from St John’s International School proudly bagged the champion and first runner up prizes which came with a scholarship each worth RM10,000 and RM6,000 respectively, while students from SMK La Salle Klang took home the second runner up prize of RM3,000 worth of individual scholarships.

Beyond receiving scholarships from INTI as part of the winning prize, all winners from the three competitions also received a variety of individual prizes from the participating industry partners from each of the challenges.

“These high school students exemplify what we expect to see of leaders in the future and they truly brought their A-game to amaze the judges. Our industry partners were very impressed by the ideas and innovation by these students and we are grateful for their efforts in giving real feedback and suggestions to improve on the students’ ideas. This is one of the ways INTI connects the dots between industry and academia, and we are proud to have facilitated this think tank process for these high school students. We warmly welcome them to our doors to continue generating these great ideas which we hope can be realized in the future,” shared Tan Lin Nah, Chief Operating Officer of INTI International University & Colleges.

Events like these are organized across INTI’s campuses nationwide to encourage high school students to engage with industry before embarking on their tertiary education. It also serves as a platform for students to get a taste of college life and all the opportunities that await them in developing their innovative ideas while enhancing their soft skills and leadership skills.