The University of the South Pacific (USP) and Spirit of Endeavour, a specialist digital transformation consulting firm from Malaysia, have agreed on a partnership which will focus on capacity building, enterprise skills development, as well as research and knowledge sharing.
Both organisations today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at USP’s Laucala Campus and was witnessed by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade, Cooperatives, SMEs, and Communications Manoa Kamikamica.
USP was represented by its deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Jito Vanualailai, while Endeavour was represented by its co-founder and managing director KV Soon.
Prof Vanualailai reiterated USP’s commitment to providing an ICT platform for digital transformation to support world-class education, research and innovation across its member countries.
“This MoU provides a unique opportunity for us to harness the dividends of digital technology in areas of education, research and innovation as we work together in Shaping Pacific Futures,” Prof Vanualailai said.
Both parties have also agreed to expand this collaboration to cover other related skill sets suited to the transformation process and that covered by the framework of USP’s faculties.
The benefits of this capacity-building agenda will have its footprints covering all the South Pacific nations represented in the network of USP, the region’s largest university.
One of the critical outcomes targeted from this MoU will be a program that will allow USP students to benefit from the learning experiences from some of the Fiji Government projects in which Endeavour is involved, such as the Fiji Ease of Doing Business Project.
This program will extend to relevant knowledge-sharing activities, including seminars and research projects.
While welcoming the partnership, Mr Kamikamica said Government welcomed such a public–private partnership initiative that promised the creation of an innovative partnership for capacity building and knowledge sharing that would benefit not only the student community of USP but also other stakeholders, including various government agencies as well as the private sector.
This MoU will also see the escalation of Endeavour’s ongoing internship program.
Under this program, qualified USP undergraduates are given paid internship opportunities with the Project Management Team, which has given them invaluable learning opportunities drawn from directly working on assignments contributing to the Ease of Doing Business Projects.
