Students express creativity through competition

Geoffrey Pong, Senior Executive Accenture Malaysia, together with representatives from participating varsities at the lauch of Accenture Gives

Ten leading Malaysian universities competed to get a grant of RM70,000 for a social project with a NGO.

“Accenture Gives: Skills to Succeed”, a nationwide competition, challenged students to design a social responsibility project to be executed during the next academic year.

The competition, opened only to first year Malaysian university students, was recently launched at Taylor’s University last month.

Teams competed with a minimum of four members and were required to work with non-governmental organisations (NGO) that collaborated with Accenture, such as Cybercare and Yayasan Salam.

This is part of the organiser Accenture Malaysia’s effort to contribute to Malaysia’s economic growth.

The competition’s main goal is to equip 250, 000 people by 2015 with the skills to obtain a job or to venture into entrepreneurship in the country.

Accenture Malaysia’s Senior Executive Geoffrey Pong highlighted that Accenture Gives also focused on providing assistance for the long-term needs of the community.

“We are not only contributing the money, but also using the money to create a maximum impact to the world by helping people to create jobs, find work and build businesses,” he added.

“Through Accenture Gives, we hope to provide students with the opportunity to help make a sustainable difference in the long-term vibrancy and vitality of people and the communities where we work and live,” Pong said.

Accounting and Finance student Chan Wing Onn said, “I am really excited to join this competition because it benefits my long term goals.”

Chan said the competition was a stepping-stone in developing his skills to face the working world while building on his networking.

Meanwhile, International student Tillian Muthoni expressed her disappointment for not being able to join the competition as it was only open to local students.

She added that the competition would have been time well spent.

(By Nur Affizza Azmi)