Glocalise the Impact

The annual YSN-ASM colloquium was held at Berjaya Hills Golf Club, Bukit Tinggi from 7 to 9 December 2018. The theme of this year’s colloquium was “Glocalise the Impact”. The annual colloquium was officiated by the President of ASM, Professor Datuk Dr Asma Ismail FASc.

The aim of the Colloquium was to bring together YSN-ASM members and affiliates from 36 institutions (IHLs, RIs and Industries) to celebrate every individual’s professional and personal accomplishments and YSN-ASM’s collective impact; it was also held to strategise YSN-ASM’s programmes and activities in 2019.

In 2018, the positive impact and influence of YSN-ASM continued to grow in many ways and forms. This was evident through the successful completion of over 50 programmes in science outreach, science education, science communication, science leadership, science policy, science integrity and international networking. One of YSN-ASM’s highlight of the year was the successful launch of the Malaysian Educational Module on Responsible Conduct of Research, which has now become a reference module in the region. Once again, YSN-ASM played an major and important role in the annual National Science Challenge that saw participation from over 7,300 school students.

This year, YSN-ASM growing role as a leading platform for young scientists made its mark at the ASEAN Level. We were the main content developers and organiser of the 7th ASEAN+3 Junior Science Odyssey that was hosted for the first time in Malaysia. 19 teams from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand and Viet Nam participated in this programme. The goal of the competition was to inspire the students’ intellectual curiosity through various experiences and experiments in STEM.

The ASEAN Young Scientists Network was officially launched in conjunction with the 75th ASEAN Committee on Science and Technology Meeting in Cebu, the Philippines. The Founding Co-chairs presented the vision of the ASEAN YSN to the 10 Ministers of Science and Technology of ASEAN member states. YSN-ASM in collaboration with Wolfson College University of Cambridge, Sunway University and Cambridge University Malaysia Society successfully organised the inaugural ASEAN Emerging Researchers Conference, an official event of the ASEAN Young Scientists Network. The inaugural conference boasted 300 participants from all 10 ASEAN member states as well as Timor Leste.

This year, Dr Chai Lay Ching took over as the new chairperson of YSN-ASM from Professor Dr Abhi Veerakumarasivam; in doing so, she became the first woman to chair YSN-ASM. Under the leadership of Dr Chai, YSN-ASM is focused on consolidating and further building on existing activities and the culture of collegiality that YSN-ASM has fostered under the leadership of her predecessor. More focused and concerted efforts on flagship programmes will be implemented to maximise the impact with the aim to groom leaders to champion various activities/initiatives by YSN-ASM.

Dr Chai also introduced the YSN-ASM Strategic Plan for 2019-2021 during the colloquium. The four pillars of the strategic plan are:

Rest assured, 2019 will surely see YSN-ASM continuing to advance as a leader in embracing, supporting, voicing and facilitating national, ASEAN and global STI agenda. In doing so, it will also increase YSN-ASM’s local and global footprint, in tandem with the colloquium theme of “Glocalise the Impact”.