Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has been granted APEX status beating eight other local competitors. Some people say that this is a "shiok sendiri" (self-consolation) award as local universities had fared badly in World University Rankings 2007. Universiti Malaya (UM) was highest ranked with no. 246 and followed by USM with no. 307.

There must be reasons why Harvard, Stanford, Illinois are top world universities. Let's look at it from a different perspective, on famous brains (in web industry) produced by these universities, just to name a few:

• Harvard - Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
• Stanford - Sergey Brin & Larry Page (Google), Jerry Yang (Yahoo)
• Illinois - Marc Andreessen (Netscape), Max Levchin (PayPal)

I guess this is one of many ways to measure how successful an education institution is. Therefore, let's have some fun by compiling a list on successful (or at least famous) alumni from local universities.


Universiti Malaya (UM)

• Abdullah Ahmad Badawi - Prime Minister
• Anwar Ibrahim - ex-Deputy Prime Minister
• Aznil Hj Nawawi - TV Host, Actor
• Rynn Lim (林宇中) - Singer, Actor
• Teresa Kok - Member of Parliament
• Victor Gu (胡渐彪) - NTV7 News Presenter, TV Host, Politician

Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM)

• Chen Wei Wei (陈薇薇) - NTV7 News Presenter, TV Host
• Daphne Iking - Model, TV Personality, Actress
• Dinesh Nair - Co-Founder & CTO of QubeConnect
• Edwin Tay - Co-Founder & CEO of Netinfinium
• Jeff Ooi - IT Consultant, Blogger, Member of Parliament

Please leave your comment if you wish to append to the list above, be it politicians, businessmen, geeks, celebrities or even porn stars. Kindly state name, current & past occupation, university or college of the personality, with any reference link if possible. Your contribution is very much appreciated!

UPDATE: Believe it or not, the alumni of USM is already creating a new term in a local newspaper!


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