APU’s Society of Petroleum Engineers Student Chapter Recognised as the Top 5% of Outstanding Student Chapters in the World

APU’s Student Chapter is proof that the university instils innovation and excellence in students. Read the full story here.

Updated 08 Jul 2022

APU’s Society of Petroleum Engineers Student Chapter Recognised as the Top 5% of Outstanding Student Chapters in the World - Feature-Image

Asia Pacific University (APU) hit another milestone after its Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Student Chapter received the 2022 Presidential Award for Outstanding Student Chapter alongside counterparts from 16 universities across the world.

This makes the APU Student Chapter among the top 5% of student chapters and one of the Best-17 whose programmes, activities, professional development, operations, community involvement, member engagement and levels of participation stood out amongst 400 students chapters in the world.

Former President of the SPE APU Student Chapter, Abdallah El Badaoui, who led the team for the term of 2020/2021 expressed his enthusiasm over the Student Chapter’s success.

“I am very happy to have raised the bar higher with my team which made us amongst the best chapters in the world and amongst the only two Malaysian student chapters that won the same award this year,” he said. Prior to this, Abdallah led the society to win its first Student Chapter Excellence Award, making it among the top 20% of chapters in the world.

The SPE APU Student Chapter grew tremendously in 2021 as they had organised and participated in 28 events, 14 events more than the previous year. This includes a fundraising relief and charity movement for the flood victims in December and providing meals to the underprivileged during Ramadan. To boot, the president had also been selected for the International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC) 2022 in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; and had attended the 2021 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) held in Dubai.

On top of that, the team developed dynamic interactions with chapters from around the world as well as industry players from the petroleum sector. For instance, Saturday for SPE (S4SPE) event that began in 2021, was a collaboration with 8 student chapters from Indonesia, Nigeria, India, Oman, United Kingdom and two sections — Kuala Lumpur and the North Emirates.

“In this fully online event featuring 10 speakers in five workshops and five technical talks every Saturday in September 2021, we had recorded over a thousand views. Another first was achieved when two exercising SPE international presidents — Tom Blasingame and Kamel Ben-Naceur — were invited as the guests of honour for our opening and closing ceremonies respectively,” recalled Abdallah.

SPE President Kamel Ben-Naceur shared similar sentiments that this achievement wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication of the student-officers.

SPE APU Student Chapter was established in February 2020, with the leadership passing on from Syed Oubee, Abdallah El Badaoui to Geerbasini Elangovan — all who have completed or are currently pursuing a Bachelor of Petroleum Engineering at APU. Their faculty advisor is Ts. Dr. Harvin Kaur Gurchran Singh and consulted by Programme Leader Ms Nur Ailie Sofyaiana Serasa.

From proposals, feedback sessions and problem solving, every student-officer at SPE APU Student Chapter has a chance to learn how to organise events and activities.

“When I took up the post, I had promised my programme leader Ms Nur Ailie and my faculty advisor Ts. Dr. Harvin that I would win this award before I graduate, and now, there is a sense of relief as my promise has been delivered. We operated for two years and had won two awards, so I hope the next generation of the chapter has somewhere to look up to and keep the legacy going,” concluded Abdallah who is currently in his final year of studies.

The Presidential Award for Outstanding Student Chapter recipients from all over the world will be officially recognised during the Student Awards Luncheon at the 2022 SPE ATCE, scheduled on 4 October 2022 in Houston, Texas, USA.