USM Wins 10 Medals At KIWIE 2012

GEORGE TOWN (Penang, Malaysia), May 15 (Bernama) -- University of Science Malaysia (USM) has made Malaysia proud by winning 10 medals for its 10 inventions at the Korea International Women's Invention Exposition (KIWIE) 2012 held in Seoul, Korea from May 3 to 6. Head of the delegation, Prof Dr Fauziah Ahmad said USM won two gold medals, four silver medals and three bronze medals, including one KIWIE 2012 main award through her invention, BananaSorp - A Novel Oil Absorbent from Banana Frond and Stem. "On top of that we also have achieved two special awards which are special awards from Taiwan and the other from Thailand. As for participation from Malaysia, three universities, namely USM, Universiti Malaysia Perlis and Universiti Tenaga Nasional participated. "In total there were 18 inventions from Malaysia alone and out of the 18 three didn't get any award," she told reporters here Tuesday. Prof Fauziah said this was the sixth time USM was participating in the KIWIE and that the 10 medals were the best performance throughout its participation in the KIWIE. She said the exposition would give a great opportunity, especially for women inventors, to expose their invention internationally as well as to meet other inventors from different countries. Prof Fauziah said USM was conducting discussions and negotiations with industry players to enable the award-winning research to be commercialized for the domestic users. Among 30 countries that participated in the KIWIE 2012 where more than 400 inventions were exhibited, were Bosnia, Egypt, Hong Kong, Philippines, Korea, Jordan and Thailand. -- BERNAMA