Cyberjaya, 17 March 2022 – In partnership with Multimedia University (MMU) Cyberjaya, a premium halal Japanese sauce brand, Hamadaya launched a design contest for the students of Faculty of Creative Multimedia, MMU. The design contest ran for 3 weeks, with over 50 submissions received in total.
The design contest which concluded on 24 February 2022, is part of Hamadaya’s efforts to provide students with an opportunity to not only enhance their skill sets which in essence will provide them higher chances of employability post graduation, but it is also to further cultivate their interest in the field through an industrial training program with the premium Japanese brand. Mona Tamer, a Year 2 Advertising Design student won first place, bringing home RM1,000 cash prize with her winning design being featured on Hamadaya’s Aidilfitri 2022 limited edition product’s packaging.
This is in line with the contest objective to provide these students an opportunity to experience having their design on product packaging, giving them a taste of a designer’s life, said Lili Ho, Vice President of Marketing for Hamadaya.
“With this initiative, we aim to nurture young talents to leverage on their interest and talents to produce top quality products packaging designs that are on par with international standards. And speaking from the marketing perspective, we believe that brands need to take advantage of the young talents’ creative minds as this will not only allow diversity in the products you offer, but encourage them to own their talents which will subsequently empower them to thrive as working adults.” added Ho.
Mona’s design included a harmonious mixture of both Malaysian and Japanese heritage in the combined elements of traditional kampung house with Japanese strokes and motifs, representing the branding of Hamadaya for Malaysians. She has also seamlessly incorporated the Soybean color to align with Hamadaya’s chosen color from the Pantone Colour of the Year.
As an extension to the initiative, both Hamadaya and MMU Cyberjaya are looking to explore a future partnership through a Memorandum of Understanding, which aims to benefit the students, including the implementation of industrial training or exclusive internship placement for MMU’s Creative Multimedia students at Hamadaya group of companies. This partnership aims to link theoretical principles to practice, improve the core competencies for MMU’s Creative Multimedia students with hands on industry practices, improve their understanding of the theoretical principles and the know-hows whilst developing students’ interpersonal, collaboration skills and other relevant skills they should possess as Creative Multimedia graduates.
As reported by New Straits Times, there is a mismatch between the abilities required for the job and the talents available due to the pandemic. Fresh graduates often find it difficult to cultivate and reflect their creativity and analytical skills to invent and design accordingly to meet the demand of businesses that are rapidly expanding and growing in line with current times.
Echoing this, Dean of Faculty of Creative Multimedia, MMU Cyberjaya, Dr. Lim Kok Yoong said, “The biggest part of education transformation is changing the way we educate. This partnership between Hamadaya and Faculty of Creative Multimedia on industry project and internship arrangement is an exemplary activity we would like to promote, as this is a mutually beneficial collaboration: For student to have a holistic view of the production pipeline, from research and ideation to problem-solving and real world application; for industry to collaborate with academia to conduct exploratory project and get access to skilled talents. I hope we can spawn more similar industry driven activities to empower our students with the competencies they need to thrive in their career.”
Meanwhile, the prize-giving ceremony took place today at MMU Cyberjaya with the attendance of both Vice President of Marketing for Hamadaya, Lili Ho, and the Dean of Faculty of Creative Multimedia, MMU Cyberjaya, Dr Lim Kok Yong.
For more information about Hamadaya, please visit the website at hamadayasauces.com or its social media pages Instagram and Facebook.