From Lab To Market: How To Build A Startup From A Research Project

14 September, Johor Bahru – On 22nd August 2022, an online structured course From Lab To Market: How To Build A Research Project was organized to share on the path to successfully commercializing research projects. The course is held using Cisco WebEx online conferencing platform. The structured course started at 11am and ended at 12.45pm. This course was organized by the Postgraduate Student Society School of Computing (PGSS-SC), with Muhammad Zafran Muhammad Zaly Shah as the moderator. This session was successfully held with the PGSS-SC committee’s help, Asraful Syifaa’ Ahmad, Muhamad Farhin Harun and Muhammad Anwar Ahmad.

This course received 200 online registrations and there were 122 participants who turned up for the event that had registered. There are 68% Ph.D. level participants, 13.1% Master degree level participants, and 3.2% of degree level participants. We also received participation from UTM staff. Additionally, 88.5% are from UTM, and the rest is non-UTM and also alumni.

The honorable speaker for the program is Professional Technologist (Ts.) Dr. Iskandar Illyas Tan. Dr. Iskandar received his PhD in Information Systems and Master Degree in Computer Science from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Postgraduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship from University of Cambridge. Previously, he is a senior lecturer at the Department of Information Systems, School of Computing, UTM. Currently at he is a lecturer at Azman Hashim International Business School (AHIBS UTM). Apart from academics, Dr. Iskandar is the Head of Halal Informatics (HOLISTICS) Research Laboratory, UTM since 2009 and Deputy Director of Halal Technology Consortium (HTC), UTM. He also founded HOLISTICS Lab Sdn Bhd in July 2015, it is UTM spin-off company that focus on the commercialisation aspects of halal technology and solutions. HOLISTICS Lab Sdn Bhd won the Halal Technology Challenge in 2015 and received RM265,000 grant from PlatCOM Venture to further develop QuikHalal©, the 1st cloud-based mobile halal auditing apps. Dr Iskandar had established a R&D network with Sejong Cyber University in Korea in order to assist them with halal R&D activities in South Korea. Moreover, he acts as a consultant to the Korean government that develop the halal hub in Korea Foodpolis in Iksan, South Korea. He is also a Certified Halal Trainer and Halal Auditor.

The course starts at 11am with the moderator briefly introducing the speaker, Dr. Iskandar’s background. Then, the floor was given to the speaker, and he started with a simple greeting to all the participants and reminded the participants that it is more of a sharing of experience and not a lecture. Then, he talked further about his background and his focus on halal industry. He explained briefly about halal industry and how halal certificate is granted in Malaysia. Other countries have different procedures and makes it hard for companies to apply for the compliance and auditing. Thus, this is what attracted him on improving halal industry.

Afterwards he started to share on how he became interested in entrepreneurship, which began when he was assigned on teaching entrepreneur skill classes. Then, he started to dive deeper into the business world and eventually lead him to founding HOLISTICS Lab Sdn Bhd. He then shared the factors that can drive people to a higher degree, based on the book called ‘The Element’ by Sir Ken Robinson. There are three factors namely love, talent, and need. When a person loves what he/she is doing, it can become the source of energy to keep doing it everyday. Meanwhile talent and need will enable the person to try and find match to apply his/her knowledge within the market.

Next, he shared the timeline of his journey of research commercialization and commented on how it is important to test the research, on how it impacts towards society, industry, or the government agencies. Investors will give all sorts of feedback, kind and vice versa, but that is normal. He showed pictures of the diploma, workshops, seminars and bootcamp he attended to improve his entrepreneur and pitching skills. He also shared his timeline of journey as entrepreneur, starting from getting grant, releasing QuikHalal© to getting their first major client which is Gerbang Alaf Sdn Bhd, the main franchiser for McDonald’s restaurant in Malaysia. He showed pictures of the programs that he gave talk to as well as the achievements and publications of his company. Before ending the session, he showed a picture of his staffs. He mentioned that it is important to treat the staff properly as they are the backbone of the company. He also emphasized that it is important to keep healthy, both physically and mentally to ensure the business is running properly.

The speaker’s session ended around 12pm. Afterwards, a Q&A session was held until around 12.45pm. There were many excellent questions and the speaker managed to answer all the questions. To wrap up the course, a photography session was held and the moderator took screenshots of all the participants. Overall, structured course was held without any major issues.

To conclude, the participants appreciate all the efforts by the SPS UTM and PGSS SC as the organizers. Additionally, 114 out of the 122 participants rate this structured course 4 and 5 stars in terms of the overall rating. From the feedbacks, the participants are very satisfied with Dr. Iskandar’s sharing of his experience. This course outcome will give a boost to motivation for PGSS SC to organize more workshops like this.