If you happen to pass by the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) entrance fronting Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah at night, or even during the day, you’ll be able to see two brand-new artificial football (or soccer to some) turfs occupying an area of the varsity’s vast green space.

Named KOPA ARENA@USM, the two fields, each one measuring 105m x 68m, are made to FIFA (the highest governing body for international football) standards and are decked with state-of-the-art facilities.

Located at the Siswaniaga@USM building, this newly-established attraction area is one-of-a-kind in enhancing the USM brand and identity. It is also one of the ‘warzones’ for students and USM communities alike to further strengthen their entrepreneurship skills. It also serves as a place for events and meetings, in addition to having the most important outlet called ‘Oleole’ which sells USM merchandise by the plentiful. This building was built after USM became the Ministry of Higher Education Entrepreneurial Awards (MEA) Champion in Malaysia in 2018.

USM and OpenLearning Global (M) Sdn Bhd have teamed-up to create a micro-credential competency-based learning platform (the first of its kind in Malaysia), that focuses on an individual’s Personal & Professional Development. It enables individuals to earn recognition for skills and competencies that they have learned throughout their careers and their life. The USM Micro-Credential Online Learning Portal will support individual lifelong learner, educators and the workforce in any organisation or industry in acquiring desired competencies that will be aligned to their own needs and priorities. It is designed in such a way to make learning and training to become more flexible, manageable, convenient and more importantly, very affordable.

Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has entered into a 20-year solar Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Ditrolic Energy Solutions Sdn. Bhd., a Malaysian clean energy solutions company for corporate and institutional customers in Southeast Asia, to set up a 10.6MWp on-site rooftop solar system in the varsity. By end of the year, with the completion of 22,374 pieces of solar modules being installed across 90 buildings, solar carports and ground mounted system within the campus grounds, USM expects most of the energy supplied to its campuses to be clean and renewable. The solar system will be able to generate power for 63.73% of its peak power demand. Over its lifetime, approximately 278,683MWh of clean energy will be generated, enabling USM to eliminate 217,705 tonnes of CO2 emissions in total.

Comfort is always a priority from us. We want to welcome students to USM with our new “hostels and accommodation transformation agenda”. The rooms also will be managed by a smart system what will provide greater satisfaction for the tenant/s. The execution of this agenda has been shared across the nation and it has already opened the eyes of many parties, as they take comfort in the idea that the achievement and success of students may also come from this side of university life.