Universiti Malaya (UM) in collaboration with the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) and Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) held an international conference entitled "International Conference on Academia-Community Engagement 2023" or InACE 2023 for short. This InACE 2023 conference is a special conference for community engagement projects organized by UM through the Universiti Malaya Community Engagement Centre or UMCares for short.
This two-day conference has managed to gather nearly 200 participants from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Bangladesh and several other countries. The participants present are those who are directly involved in community engagement activities in their respective countries.
According to Professor Dr. Sabri Musa who represents the Director General of Higher Education at the Department of Higher Education, the MADANI concept can be used in the implementation of community projects because it is not only focused on the process of solving problems and meeting the current needs of the country, but also to create a peaceful and prosperous future that fulfills its potential the people.
"The InACE conference is an initiative of this university to promote the channeling of research impact to the community. This is in line with UM's slogan - Serving the Nation, Impacting the World", said Associate Professor Dr. Amer Siddiq as Director of UMCares and Chairman of InACE2023.
By providing a platform like this, he hopes that all stakeholders and the community can gather and discuss the implementation of more significant and high-impact community projects.
While Encik Hirman Awang as the Director of the Holistic Student Division, Department of Higher Education believes that this conference should be supported and continued so that community initiatives that have been implemented by various parties can be learned and shared together.
By raising the concept of MADANI, the theme of this conference highlights the importance of strategic cooperation of various parties to help the community in solving various problems faced. A total of 140 community projects involving several groups of academics with different expertise, students, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with the involvement of several stakeholders were successfully presented in this conference.