by SHAIFQQUL ALIFF / pic by TMR FILE 

TENAGA Nasional Bhd (TNB), through Universiti Tenaga Nasional (Uniten), plans to introduce professional certification programmes on data science that will be offered through Uniten’s Institute of Informatics and Computing in Energy together with the university academic and industry partners. 

Communications and Multimedia Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa said the programme is to improve the employability of unemployed undergraduates and employees who were retrenched or lost their jobs due to Covid-19, and this will ensure the target group will be “upskilled and reskilled, and subsequently employed when situations improve”. 

“I am indeed pleased to know about Uniten’s plans to conduct Data Science Professional Certification programmes which will include computational thinking using the theory of inventive problem-solving. 

“This would be a worthy investment that will create a generation that is able to think critically and possesses the required soft skills to make creative and innovative decisions based on not just data analytics but also wisdom,” he said during the officiating of the 7th International Visual Informatics Conference 2021 at Uniten Putrajaya recently.

The conference has continuously attracted participation of experts from the field and this year, it has the most number of collaborating partners, comprising 21 universities from local and overseas. 

Annuar added that the initiative is an additional step taken by TNB in playing its role in the National Recovery Plan by providing job and skills training programmes to help reduce unemployment, and at the same time support the country’s economic recovery. It is already doing so under two other programmes, namely TNB Reskilling Malaysia and TNB Protégé. 

Meanwhile, Uniten vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Kamal Nasharuddin Mustapha said the three-day event, which ended last Thursday, virtually brought together more than 200 delegates from 18 different countries to discuss visual informatics. 

He said academicians, scientists and researchers attending the conference stand to benefit from the networking and synergies will lead to value creation among the participants and mankind. 

Uniten, a wholly-owned subsidiary of TNB that was established in 1997, has produced a total of 35,403 graduates since 1998. The employability rate of its graduates in 2020 was 93% and 8.3% of them are job creators (entrepreneurs).