MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

New Year Message from the President

 

LOOKING BACK AT 2022 & MOVING FORWARD IN 2023  

First of all, I wish all IKM members, friends & colleagues a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year 2023.

The coronavirus was first discovered at the end of 2019 and by early 2020, it spread very rapidly throughout the world. The cases in Malaysia were so bad that the Malaysian Government imposed the Movement Control Order (MCO) on 18th March 2020. After two years of fighting the pandemic, we finally relaxed the tight control in April 2022. After a few months of adjusting to the level of the virus incidents, we finally are able to move about freely but still with a number of precautionary measures being taken. The same things are happening in the world and China is the last country to decide to opening up her border only very recently.

I would call 2022 the year of recovery, allowing us to slowly adjusting to the pandemic but at the same time, able to carry out our usual activities with some precautionary measures being taken. In fact, IKM is among the first to organise Malam Kimia 2020 & 2021 on 3rd December 2021 with more than 500 guests present. Then we held our 55th Annual General Meeting (55AGM) on 26th March 2022 and elected the IKM Council for 2022 – 2023.

IKM Branches and Committees are also slowly getting on with their activities; but most the events are being held online to minimise physical contacts.

One major event in 2022 is the Kuiz Kimia Kebangsaan Malaysia or K₃M 2022 which was held in schools taking part on 29th September 2022. This year, we have a total of 35,922 students from 944 schools taking part. We also organise a special event to commemorate 21 years of K₃M from 2002 – 2022. The K₃M 21st Anniversary Grand Dinner 2022 with theme of “Celebrating 21 years of Excellence in Chemistry Education” was held on 30th September 2022. At the Dinner, members of the K₃M Technical Committee were presented with Certificates of Appreciation and each member received a souvenir watch. The Chairman and the two Coordinators were also presented with special commemorative plaques.

The highlight of 2022 is the International Congress on Pure & Applied Chemistry (ICPAC) 2022 which was held in the Magellan Sutera Resorts, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah from 22 – 27th November 2022. ICPAC KK 2022 attracted 504 participants from 6 countries. It was supported by Malaysia Convention & Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB) and Sabah Tourism Board (STB).

For 2023, we are moving full steam ahead. We shall start 2023 with our 56th Annual General Meeting (56AGM) on 18th March 2023.

The next major event will be the 16th Asian Conference on Analytical Sciences or ASIANALYSIS XVI 2023 which will be held in the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre from 9 – 12th October 2023. ASIANALYSIS XVI also incorporates APCE 2023 – International Symposium on Microscale Separation & Analysis.

The International Congress on Pure & Applied Chemistry, or ICPAC, is another major international scientific meeting that will take place in 2023. We are planning to organise ICPAC 2023 in Bali, Indonesia sometime in September 2023.

Another major milestone that will happen in 2023 is the Accreditation of Chemistry Programmes in Malaysian universities by Institut Kimia Malaysia (IKM). With the approval of the Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA), IKM will offer this Accreditation scheme to Malaysian universities offering chemistry and chemistry-related programmes.

We are also working on amendments to our Chemists Rules 2023. These Rules are currently being finalised by the Attorney General’s Chamber with inputs from IKM. Once finalised, we shall seek approval from the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Malaysia. Then these Rules would be gazetted and implemented. We are sure that this will take place in 2023.

So, we are looking forward to a fruitful and rewarding 2023.

 

Datuk Dr Soon Ting Kueh

President, Institut Kimia Malaysia

Date: 31st December 2022