UNIVERSITI Brunei Darussalam (UBD) and ASEAN University Network (AUN) jointly held three back-to-back AUN events from July 24-26 at The Rizqun International Hotel, Brunei Darussalam.
The three events were the 10th ASEAN AUN Rectors’ Meeting, the 34th AUN-BOT (AUN Board of Trustees) Meeting and the 4th ASEAN+3 Rectors’ Conference.
The meetings were co-hosted by UBD Vice Chancellor Datin Dr Hajah Anita Binurul Zahrina binti Pehin Orang Kaya Laila Wijaya Dato Seri Setia Haji Awang Abdul Aziz and AUN Executive Director Dr Choltis Dhirathiti. The three meetings were attended by AUN member university presidents, vice presidents and representatives.
The 10th AUN Rectors’ Meeting provided a platform for AUN university presidents, rectors and their representatives to discuss nine key agenda which included matters such as the Crisis Management Framework, Rebranding of AUN Intellectual Property, to matters concerning AUN Quality Assurance as well as proposal of new AUN thematic networks to accelerate collaboration between member universities.
In her welcoming remarks, UBD Vice Chancellor shared that ASEAN is rising rapidly in economic and global importance with a market of 630 million people and an economy growing by around five per cent per year. ASEAN is predicted to be the fifth largest economy in the world by 2020.
“The success of societies and economies is increasingly dependent on the creation and innovative application of knowledge. For knowledge-based societies and economies to develop and flourish, universities play a critical role. In this respect, I believe that ASEAN universities are at the most exciting phase of their development now, and that the future for ASEAN universities is bright,” she added.
The 34th AUN-BOT Meeting was also attended by the Deputy Secretary General of ASEAN for ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Vongthep Arthakaivalvatee.
Among the key areas stressed during the 34th AUN-BOT meeting were internationalisation, quality assurance, student mobility and credit transfer in AUN member universities in aligning to the relevant ASEAN Declarations. In this era of Industrial Revolutio 4.0 where the economy is also impacted by technologies such as Financial Technologies or FinTech for brevity, universities are moving from a system based on facts and procedures to one that actively applied knowledge and skills to collaborative problem solving.
The meetings concluded with the 4th ASEAN+3 Rectors’ Conference, bringing together 80 participants from the AUN member universities as well as ASEAN plus three universities from China, South Korea and Japan.
The conference discussed the pertinent issue of ‘The Impacts of Information Society on Our Universities: Current Challenges and Future Strategies’ in keeping universities aligned with the 4th Industrial Revolution.
The delegates also visited UBD campus including the Entrepreneurship Village, The Treasure Cove and the UBD Botanical Research Centre. The AUN was established in November 1995.
UBD is one of the founding member universities of AUN which was set up in November 1995, and actively participates in AUN activities, projects and thematic networks.