In order to enhance friendly relations between Overseas Community alumni and their alma maters, while simultaneously promoting Taiwan’s higher education abroad, this year the Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) held the first Global Outstanding Overseas Community Alumni Awards. The nominees were divided among six categories including Contributions to Overseas Chinese Affairs, Enterprise & Business, Social Welfare, Public Affairs, Academic Achievement, and Culture and Sports. A total of 56 candidates from all over the world were recommended by universities across Taiwan. Among them, Ma Oon Kwong, a Malaysian alumni of National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST), stood out amidst strong competition and won the award for Enterprise & Business. Ma graduated from the 11th Class of the Overseas Youth Technical Training Program, Agriculture Management Section when the school was operating as the Taiwan Provincial Pingtung Institute of Agriculture. After successful careers in his home country, 39 years later, Ma returned to his alma mater and enrolled in the Department of Agribusiness Management of Overseas Malaysian In-Service Master’s Program, receiving a master’s degree in 2019 and demonstrating an admirable spirit of tireless learning.
In 2002, Ma established a company in Malaysia (PWO Industries Sdn. Bhd) that was dedicated to recycling and reusing materials from used clothing according to the concept of circular economy, and became a pioneer in the promotion of environmental sustainability. Out of a desire to support Taiwan’s agriculture products, in 2016 Ma went on to establish Pingtech Agriculture Sdn. Bhd. and began importing Taiwanese agricultural products to Malaysia and Singapore. Offering further support to Taiwan and her Malaysian alumni, Ma also worked to help get the Malaysian Veterinary Administration to recognize degrees in veterinary medicine conferred by the NPUST Department of Veterinary Medicine. Previous to this, due to Malaysia’s official policy to protect the domestic employment rates, the degrees were not recognized and many Malaysian students who had obtained bachelor’s degrees in veterinary medicine in Taiwan were unable to engage in related practices after returning to Malaysia. In March 2019, Ma organized the “1stMalaysian Agriculture, Forestry, Fishery and Animal Husbandry Exhibition” with 72 industry representatives from Taiwan and Malaysia attending presentations designed to share valuable information from Taiwan’s experiences in agricultural technology. The activities, which combined academics and industry, helped successfully establish an exchange platform for relevant industry players in Malaysia. Ma also assisted NPUST with the launching of the Overseas Master Class in Agribusiness Management in Malaysia to provide local industry practitioners with training opportunities and to cultivate local talent in agricultural business management. This, in turn, will also help increase opportunities for younger Malaysian students studying at NPUST to find related work when returning home. Ultimately, his contributions to NPUST have been manifold.
Although he lives in Malaysia, Ma still shows care for the development of his Alma Mater and keeps himself involved. In 2014, he was honored with the Outstanding Alumni Award and in 2015 he became the president of the “Malaysian Alumni Association of NPUST”, in which capacity he has been inviting back many alumni every year to participate in the annual university celebration. This has not only helped to deepen sentiments between Malaysian alumni and their alma mater, but has also given them a chance to recall their youthful memories and retrace the footprints they made while living in Taiwan.
The honor that Ma Oon Kwong received in winning the Overseas Community Affairs Council’s 1st Global Outstanding Overseas Community Alumni Awards is reflected by his Alma Mater, which hopes to see more links built between her and her friends in Malaysia so that more students will be able to reap the benefits for many years to come.
