Limkokwing University recently announced the winners of its Apple iPad Creative Giveaway Contest—a contest held to increase awareness of the University’s Student Portal, particularly its revamped design and the new features it has to offer, as well as encourage submissions to the Portal’s Creative Exchange section.

The winners were: Bernard Nare from the Faculty of Communication, Media & Broadcasting; Ody Samuel Puspowardojo from the Faculty of Design Innovation; Sepehr Mahmoudian from the Limkokwing Executive Leadership College; and Yon Man Man from the Faculty of Design Innovation. All winners were rewarded with an Apple iPad each, a device which the University believes will serve as the ideal mobile learning resource, as well as one of the best ways to access to Portal.

The Limkokwing University Student Portal sets itself apart from conventional student portals available in other tertiary institutions. Its main aim is to facilitate the exchange of creative ideas among the University’s students, hence the introduction of features such as the Creative Exchange where students can upload their work to be seen and commented upon by other students.

The contest, open to students of the Cyberjaya campus, allows a student to compete through four different methods: By giving the most constructive feedback on how to improve the Portal in the community forum, receive the most votes for his work by other students or have his work voted most creative by in-house judges made up of professional designers. One lucky winner will be selected via random selection from the pool of students who login to the Portal via the Facebook Connect feature. One iPad is reserved for each method.

Bernard Nare, who had the most student votes for his photo titled ‘Heal the World’, has found several of the Portal’s features to be extremely helpful. He said: “There’s the calendar, the ranking by the graph bar which indicates the positions of the students. And the timetable makes things much easier, especially those who constantly misplace their timetables. Then there’s the Student Community where you can talk about anything.”

Asked about how he felt when he found out he won, he said, “I was really happy. Some people told me I was going to win and I was sure I was going to win but on the other hand I was a little bit scared because my closest competitor was coming up really fast so I was kind of scared. But the minute I found out I won, I was so happy. I worked hard for this.”

Ody Samuel Puspowardojo, a final year student who saw his work selected as the most creative, thinks very highly of the Portal and its social networking features. He said: “I think it’s a great portal. I think it’s the best and most advanced student portal I’ve seen, compared to others such as Curtin’s and RMIT’s. It’s good since we can also interact with other students while the other portals are not like that.”

He also mentioned his time at the University as the main catalyst for the improvement of his skills and graphic sense. “I can see from my artwork before I started studying here and after I studied here there’s been a lot of improvement. I think Limkokwing University is a good place to study graphic design. It’s challenging and I gained a lot of experience I otherwise wouldn’t have had if I stayed back in Indonesia.”

The four winners—originating from Malaysia, Indonesia, Botswana and Iran respectively—offered a true reflection of the University and its multicultural setup which currently has 30,000 students studying in its 12 campuses across three continents in Asia, Europe and Africa.

Sepehr Mahmoudian, who gave the most productive feedback on ways to improve the Portal, had plenty of kind words for the University’s unique approach to education. “I realised that Limkokwing is different in many ways. Education is looked at from a different point of view while innovative and creative thinking is encouraged. There is no fear or resistance to try new ideas.”