Champions of Schneider Electric’s 8th Annual ‘Go Green in the City’ Competition, Team The Outliers Set to Represent Malaysia for APAC Region Finals

• Young, talented Malaysian innovators from Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), The Outliers will be competing against 12 countries at the Asia Pacific Region Finals, where members of the winning team will receive a once in a lifetime employment opportunity with Schneider Electric and visit Schneider Electric offices worldwide 
• Emerging as champion against five other finalists, Team The Outliers received a RM5,000 bursary, the winning trophy and a Certificate of Honour

Schneider Electric, the global specialist in Digital Transformation of Energy Management and Automation in Homes, Buildings, Data Centres, Infrastructure and Industries, announced team The Outliers from Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) as the Malaysian winner of its 8th annual ‘Go Green in the City’ University Challenge. This annual competition offers Malaysia’s upcoming and talented engineering and business students the opportunity to present and showcase their ideas for a more efficient and sustainable energy management in our rapidly growing cities. 

Under the theme “What’s your bold idea?”, students were required to illustrate their ideas for innovative energy management solutions in cities for one of the four real-life case challenges within energy management, namely “Sustainability & Inclusivity”, “Digital Economy”, “Smart Manufacturing & Supply Chain”, “Cyber Security”, or focus on an original idea for efficient energy management in a city environment. The proposals were judged based on innovation from the business perspective, environmental impact, and energy management perspective, the feasibility of the idea and the knowledge of Schneider Electric’s products. 

Farah Aini Shazlin, 22 and Iyadh Haziq Wan Yusof, 22 from the winning team, Team Outliers from UNITEN received the grand prize of RM5, 000 and a trophy, as well as each a Certificate of Honour. The team will represent Malaysia to compete against 12 other teams from Indonesia, Cambodia, Korea, Japan, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand at the Asia Pacific Region Finals on the 28th – 29th August 2018 for a place at the international finals in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, which will be held in November, 2018. 

Soo Pow Leong, Country President of Schneider Electric Malaysia, said “As a global energy management industry leader, Schneider Electric is thrilled to be a forefront in providing this platform for the younger generation to share their visions and strategies on sourcing for smarter alternatives to global solutions on challenges in the energy industry. “Go Green in the City” was organized to foster talented young engineers and future business leaders to promote change and to make a difference by striving for technical expertise and utilizing a strong moral compass.” 

“This competition saw quality efficient, sustainable, and smart city solutions by passionate and dedicate young future leaders. Schneider Electric is committed in the country’s talent development as we gear towards growing local talent pools. We hope this competition will encourage more bright young talents in finding green solutions to environmental issues into achieving our goal of having greener and smarter city. My heartiest congratulations goes out to team The Outliers for their victory, and we are confident that their good work will be able to trump the APAC Region finals,” said Soo. 

According to Kumareshan Mardappan from the Energy Commission, who also sat on the panel of judges, this competition is an innovative way to discover ways of establishing smart cities through the eyes of the future generation. 

“By organizing this competition on a global scale and involving students within its process, Schneider Electric has stepped up as an industry leader to provide a platform to expand and foster our local talent pools. Similarly, the ‘Go Green in the City’ competition is very much in line with our mission at the Energy Commission, which is to foster economic development and competitive markets in an environmentally sustainable manner. This is why we’ve always been supportive of such initiatives, and we hope that other industry players can utilise this as a benchmark to address, improve and spearhead sustainability efforts,” added Kumareshan. 

The final event in the USA promises to be an extremely rewarding experience with four action-packed days in a culturally rich and engaging environment where the students will get to interact with Schneider Electric’s top management, build a strong and lasting professional and personal network, learn about the business from experts and develop key skills through various workshops and activities. 

Members of the global winning team will receive an opportunity to work with Schneider Electric and visit Schneider Electric’s offices in two different countries on an all-expenses paid trip. 

Go Green in the City is an interesting and unique challenge as one member of the two-members team must be a female. This is a crucial platform to promote workplace diversity in industrial positions and can help to integrate women’s views and perspectives in the energy management industry. 

This year’s winning topic was presented by the bright young students from University Tenaga Nasional and they focused on integrating agriculture in a smart city that they called as Agro Smart City. “It is an honour for us to have won Schneider Electric’s “Go Green in the City” competition in the Malaysia finals this year. Although it was a tough competition, we are proud to be given the opportunity to represent Malaysia at the Asia Pacific Region Finals against teams from different countries. This is an eye-opening experience for us, as we get to share our passion and ideas which could contribute to more ways on efficient energy management in a city environment on an international scale. We will do our best and make Malaysia proud,” said Farah Aini Shazlin from Team The Outliers. 

Bagging the 1st runner up title with their concept of Press the Court, Save the Earth, Team Energyz from Asia Pacific University took home RM3,000 and certificate of honor while Team SchrikE from Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus + University Malaysia Pahang achieved the 2nd runner up title with their idea on Railways of Tomorrow. 

List of winners: - 

1 st Place Team The Outliers Farah Aini Shazlin Iyadh Haziq Wan Yusof Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) RM5,000 + Trophy + Certificate 

1 st Runner Up Team Energyz Larviania A/P Somasundram Yap Zhi Wen Asia Pacific University (APU) RM3,000 + Certificate 

2 nd Runner Up Team SchrikE Lee Keifer Lim Yan Ying Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus (TULC) + University Malaysia Pahang (UMP) RM1,000 + Certificate 

For more information on the contest, please visit www.gogreeninthecity.com.