INTI and Ricoh Launch RM800,000 E-Resource Centre
INTI Students to Experience Real Life Business Environment
(From left to right: Mr. Boh Boon Chiang (Chief Executive of INTI University College), Mr Lim Eng Weng (Managing Director of Ricoh (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd) and Graham Doxey (Deputy CEO of the INTI Education Group)
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Nilai, 18 February 2009 - The INTI Education Group has entered into a collaboration with a global leader in digital office solutions - Ricoh - which has invested RM800,000.00 to establish an E-Resource Centre at INTI University College in Negeri Sembilan; the first such initiative within an educational institution anywhere in the world.
The state-of-the-art E-Resource Centre will provide INTI students with a real life business environment, offering a corporate experiential learning within the campus. The centre also serves as an extension of Ricoh's R&D center, providing INTI with access to the Ricoh Intellectual Property Proprietary Development Kit Programme for developing embedded and interfacing software applicable to Ricoh's multi-functional products. At the Centre, students will be able to customise and develop new applications for various devices.
Under INTI's E2E (Enrolment to Employment) strategic initiative, of which Ricoh is an important partner, students and staff of INTI are exposed to various business and technology solutions that are not often taught in the classroom. They also learn of best practices from industry practitioners via the E2E BizTECH and Ricoh TechTALK table discussion series held within the E-Resource Centre.
With the effective use of Ricoh's On-Demand printing technology, Eugene is able to witness the fruit of his labour and realise every budding writer's dream of getting their first book published for the public's appreciation.
Ricoh has pledged its full support to INTI via the E2E programme, which is aligned to Ricoh's philosophy of developing the human capital in Malaysia.
"E2E is the first initiative by the education sector to work closely with the industry to develop courses based on market needs," said Mr Lim Eng Weng, Managing Director of Ricoh (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd. "There is a clear difference in how the students develop and perform as they have a distinctive edge over their peers."
"We believe in contributing back to the society and always been very supportive of various corporate responsibility programmes in Malaysia. The E-Resource Centre is another Ricoh's initiative in giving back to the society by producing good quality graduates for our workforce," he added.
"At the Centre, students can test the machines. It provides them with the opportunity to improve their IT skills and knowledge. This will also help them to become more competitive in a real business environment."
Meanwhile, Deputy CEO of the INTI Education Group, Mr Graham Doxey said : "We are committed to ensuring that our students stand out and we are able to achieve this with our emphasis on career-focused courses, internationalism and 21st century quality, as well as through initiatives such as this one with Ricoh which helps ensure experiential learning.
"Ricoh's tremendous contribution in jointly developing our course curriculum and providing the facilities to promote skills specialization have enabled our students to develop qualities and know-how that are highly sought after by employers and industries."
All costs for the set-up, maintenance and development of the Centre are borne by Ricoh. It is physically built and established within INTI University College in Putra Nilai and equipped with the latest multi-functional printers, software services, workflow applications and network connectivity accessible through the Internet. Ricoh engineers and interns from INTI will manage and run the Centre.
Providing a cozy and truly corporate environment, the Centre serves as a central hub for all the digital and printing needs of INTI students and staff at competitive rates and represents one of Ricoh's corporate social responsibilities and higher education initiatives to accelerate adoption of digital office technology.
The Centre also serves as a study lounge for the INTI community as it provides unrestricted wireless internet connectivity, desktop PCs, coloured bar stools for notebook users, and ergonomic furniture for BizTech technology talks and student project discussions.
Apart from the E-Resource Centre initiative, Ricoh is also working closely with INTI Education Group to bring about top-notch and career-focused education, which includes internship training programmes to graduating scholars via INTI's E2E programme and other recognition awards.
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