SERDANG, Dec 20 — All 11 entries submitted by the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) bagged nine gold medals and two silver at the International Invention, Innovation and Technology Exhibition (ITEX) 2021 held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on Dec 13 and 14.
MARDI also won a silver medal and a bronze for food innovation for healthy ageing and mobile technology application for the monitoring of the harvesting machines respectively at the Seoul International Invention Fair (SIIF) which was held in a hybrid manner between Dec 1 and 4.
MARDI director-general Datuk Dr Mohamad Zabawi Abdul Ghani at a press conference here today said the technologies that MARDI showcased at these innovation competitions had high commercial value especially food products.
“Based on MARDI’s participation record between 2016 and 2020, our entries at ITEX this time brought glory to MARDI because we managed to win big with 100 per cent of our entries winning a medal,” he said.
Mohamad Zabawi said following its success, MARDI received offers from more than 10 local entrepreneurs who expressed interest to market the innovations especially food products.
He said among the innovations that attracted the attention of entrepreneurs were anthocyanin-rich cereals from purple sweet potatoes of the Anggun variety, the nutritious soup containing pegaga (also known as Gotu Kola and Mandukaparni) extract and ingredients from agricultural and seaweed sources, plus frozen soft keropok lekor (fish sausage).
“We expect to market the products within six months,” he said.
Mohamad Zabawi said MARDI has 65 innovations encompassing food, machine, crop and cosmetics which are ready to be commercialised by local entrepreneurs.
Senior MARDI scientist, Ten Seng Teik invented a smart camera vision system with a collaborative robot to clean swiftlet nests, which took him three years to complete.
“The idea came to me when I realised getting manpower was a problem and the task of cleaning the nests need sharp vision. And this innovation is to increase the yield of swiftlet nests,” he said.
He said cleaning the bird’s nest manually would take about an hour to complete but with the machine, it takes only 20 minutes.
MARDI researcher Nor Zalina Mat Saad won silver for food innovation for healthy ageing in her first participation at the SIIF said she introduced three products namely, a protein bar, pudding and vegetable-based lactose-free ice confection and purple sweet potatoes.
She said the products were specially tailored for senior citizens because to date, no specific food product has been produced to cater to the elderly.
Source: BERNAMA News Agency