It is our pleasure to inform you that the International CDIO Council has accepted 3 new members of the CDIO Initiative in Asia. A total of five Asian schools have now been accepted as CDIO members in the first months of 2017.

1. Inje University - Korea

About the school

Inje University is a prestigious university in the biomedical health care field with five major subsidiary hospitals. Inje University consists of 12 colleges and 48 departments. Two of the colleges are associated with engineering education: College of Engineering and College of BNIT. 1,893 undergraduate students and 82 graduate students are attending at these two colleges, and 91 faculty members and 21 technical staff are working. Inje University is targeting its education with integration with focusing on field work through manpower training, expert creativity in biomedical healthcare and vitalizing education which connected with industry.

What goals do you hope to achieve by becoming a CDIO Member?

Currently, most engineering education focus on theory and research, and universities are neglecting the quality of undergraduate education. We agree with the needs for innovation in the engineering education. Korea is facing a crisis due to social problems such as an increase work joining age, declining population and aging. In the midst of this social change, training courses to learn practical engineering knowledge and skills - What CDIO is pursuing- to meet industry demands are even more pressing. Inje University has been selected as PRIME (PRogram for Industrial needs-Matched Education) arranged by Ministry of Education and National Research Foundation of Korea. Existing departments have been merged or newly created, and the curriculum has been fine-tuned. The PRIME project philosophy is similar to what CDIO is pursuing.

Most of our graduates are employed in small to medium size businesses in nearby areas (Gyeongnam) rather than large companies. While large companies require deep expertise in specific areas, small businesses require interdisciplinary skills from product planning to design to production. The education that CDIO pursues - interdisciplinary knowledge and practice techniques, communication skill - will help our students become interested in study and contribute to the company they work for.

2. Feng Chia University - Taiwan

About the school

The Feng Chia College of Engineering and Business was established in 1961 and received university status in 1980, Feng Chia University (FCU) has steadily increased in size and scope. Currently, FCU is comprised of ten colleges and two schools that offer forty bachelor’s programs, forty-two master’s programs, fifteen doctoral programs, seventeen continuing studies master’s programs, and three continuing studies bachelor’s programs. FCU boasts over 20,000 students - of which more than 1,500 are international students, 2,200 faculty and staff, and over 170,000 alumni.

FCU is characterized by its excellence in teaching and well-focused research. By providing students with a broad worldview and professional knowledge and skills, as well as an appreciation for the arts and humanities, FCU is cultivating the next generation of leaders in every sector of the society.

What goals do you hope to achieve by becoming a CDIO Member?

There are four main points: (1) Rethinking university role and its pedagogical practices to help students become global citizens. (2) Improving students’ ability for industrial innovation and transformation. It is essential for Taiwanese universities to participate in social enterprise and collaborate with industries to improve students’ abilities and knowledge to meet industrial needs. (3) Reducing gaps between theory and applications, offering curriculum for engineering students to understand aspects of conceiving, designing, implementing and operating systems for international competitiveness has become an

urgent issue to discuss in university engineering education. (4) Enhancing students’ interests in engineering education. Using active and experimental learning techniques and hand-on activities will help establish integrated curriculum to improve students’ personal and interpersonal skills and product, process and system building skills with disciplinary knowledge.

3. FPT University - Vietnam

About the school

Established on September 13, 1988, with IT and Telecommunications as its core business sectors, FPT has provided services to 63 provinces and cities in Vietnam and has constantly expanded globally to a current presence in 20 countries. In 2006 FPT opened its own university and initially focusing on software engineering major. FPT’s mission was to establish a new model for information technology education in the twenty first century, integrating the program with real life practice and tailoring it to fit the requirements of industry. FPT University has provided high quality training and human resources skilled in information technology and other fields related to the business objectives of FPT and other multinational technology corporations. On November 25th 2016, on the occasion of 10 years anniversary of FPT University, the educational organization presented FPT Education as a new brand of the whole educational system. This system comprises of different training units such as high school, vocational training, undergraduate, postgraduate, international affiliates and student exchange with multi-level, multidisciplinary, multi-segment, multi-modal and multi-location.

What goals do you hope to achieve by becoming a CDIO Member?

Our educational system is oriented to international quality standards. Our programs are designed to be global and make good conditions for exchanging students between FPT Education’s units and other foreign universities.We want to have good educational programs that are recognized in Vietnam as well as in the world. Up to now, FPT University is rated as 3 Stars QS for the overall. In these criteria, Teaching, Employability, Facilities and Social Responsibility are rated as Highest 5 Stars QS. In a longer term, we plan to apply for international accreditations such as AUN-QA, ACBSP… for our educational programs. Recently, we have set up an Educational Technology Project. We have been doing research of Constructivism, Project Based Learning (PBL), and Blended-Based Learning (BBL)…and are applying step-by-step, these learning and teaching methodologies in reality. However, we still lack of a solid framework for designing and implementing good educational programs.  Furthermore, we have not had the consistent and systematic process and means of storing data which is considered evidences for assessing academic activities. Therefore, we think that CDIO can provide us the realistic framework which we are looking for a long time. Moreover, we can interact and learn from CDIO member’s successful examples. As a result, FPT University can create a new generation of lecturers and R&D staffs having good knowledge of CDIO and good connecting with other is CDIO community to reach further achievements in the field of education.

Presentations about Dalat University in Vietnam and Politeknik Ungku Omar in Malaysia