The VRARA is happy to welcome Dr Vinesh Thiruchelvam as the Malaysia Chapter President.
I would like to thank VRARA in appointing me as the new Chapter President for VRARA Malaysia Chapter. With my passion for technology driven by the excitement in developing new fortified solutions using emerging tech as a base, I would like to spread the awareness of VRARA towards the technologist community in Malaysia. Additionally I would like to connect academia, government agencies and the industry in the spirit of advocating the true positive impacts of VR/AR as a step towards future Smart City engagements. -Dr Vinesh Thiruchelvam
Prof Ir EurIng Ts Dr Vinesh Thiruchelvam is a professional and chartered engineer registered with the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM) and Engineering Council (UK) having over 26 years’ experience in engineering education/academics, ICT, operations & maintenance, facility management, design and project management in various industries ranging from building services/property, oil & gas, district cooling plants, co-generation power plants and the port industry. As a EurIng certified in 36 European countries, he has managed smart city or sustainable development international projects in the UK, France, Ireland, Germany, Holland, Japan, Maldives, India, Russia, Iran, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia for the property sector, ports, oil & gas and power plant industries.
He was the principal engineer on Malaysia’s first Waste to Energy technology transfer program 2002 to 2004 under MOSTI & MOHLG, head of a port’s Operations & Maintenance Department from 1998 to 2002 where he managed the facility management, operations & maintenance programmes and technical teams. Having moved to the Middle East in 2005, Prof Vinesh focused his specialization mainly in the building services/property sector primarily in designing smart sustainable and energy efficient buildings, rail, and airports.
Upon returning home to Malaysia in 2012, he took up the position of Head of Engineering School and in 2014 was promoted to Dean of the Faculty of Computing, Engineering & Technology (FCET) at Asia Pacific University (APU). In 2019, he was promoted to APU’s Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research & Innovation) and Chief Innovation Officer for the APIIT Education Group. In 2022, promoted further into the corporate division as the APIIT Education Group’s Chief Innovation & Enterprise Officer.
Since 2012, he has been an advocate for emerging technologies having pioneered infrastructures such as the centres for IoT & Drone Technology, Digital Forensics, XR Studio, Health Robotics, Web3 Innovation and the Financial Trading at APU. Prof Vinesh has also managed to forge industry-academia-government partnerships and has selected to impactful think tanks or task forces in developing talents and skills on to innovative projects utilizing emerging technologies namely for ministries such as MOSTI, MOE, MOH, MOHR, KASA, KKKM and MOT.
