University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM) academic Dr Jayalakshmy Ramachandran along with her team of women researchers from University Teknologi MARA (UiTM) won a Gold Award at the Invention, Innovation and Design Exposition (IIDEX) 2020 for their app development project “Let’s Flex the FlexiWork Apps to Measure Productivity”.
Organised by UiTM and the Research Management Institute (RMI), IIDEX is an annual exhibition and competition that encourages young and upcoming inventors to showcase their talents. Funded by the Ministry of Higher Education’s (MoHE) Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, Dr Jayalakshmy, and her teammates Dr Geetha Subramaniam, Dr Rajeswari Raju, Dr Lennora Binti Putit, Dr Siti Halijjah Binti Shariff and Nurzafira Rozlan developed FlexiWork. This all-women team effort was led by Dr Geetha Subramaniam from UiTM.
For many universities in Malaysia, Flexible Work Arrangements were not an option for their academic staff as it was seen as non-productive. As such, FlexiWork was designed with academic staff in mind to be a self-check tool for them to be able to gauge their productivity levels in terms of publications and key point indicators when they worked under Flexible Work Arrangements. Conducting and collating their research findings was a two-year endeavour but creating the prototype of the app was achieved in a month.
Dr Jayalakshmy, who is an academic from Nottingham University Business School (NUBS) Malaysia, also talked about some of the challenging aspects in carrying out the project, such as having to complete the project by working online and without having any face-to-face interactions. However, their hard work paid off when they received Gold, a feat which left them overwhelmed.
Dr Jayalakshmy and her team are currently working towards patenting their app and are also in the process of collaborating with a technology company to release an app for the general public to use.
An overview of the app is available here.
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For media enquiries please contact: Josephine Dionisappu, PR and Communications Manager University of Nottingham Malaysia at josephine.dionisappu@nottingham.edu.my
Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham is a research-intensive university with a proud heritage, consistently ranked among the world's top 100. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our 44,000 students - Nottingham was named both Sports and International University of the Year in the 2019 Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, was awarded gold in the TEF 2017 and features in the top 20 of all three major UK rankings. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement. We are ranked eighth for research power in the UK according to REF 2014. We have six beacons of research excellence helping to transform lives and change the world; we are also a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally.
Posted on 19th February 2021