FDSA 2025: Asst. Prof. Chua Huwi Huwi opens up on her students’ potential

by Aisha Capulong

Asst. Prof. Chua Huwi Huwi's dynamic demeanor paired with her firm pride in her students' capability makes her a force to be reckoned with — one that the Future Design Star initiative is honoured to collaborate with

We sat down with Assistant Professor Chua Huwi Huwi, Dean of First City University College’s Faculty of Design & Built Environment, during their MOU signing with the inaugural Future Design Star Award programme for a short interview on her excitement for their involvement and where she hopes the initiative can go in the future.

First City University College’s prevailing hallmark is providing quality education, where graduates can rest assured they leave their courses being future-proof. With a glowing track record that goes back over 30 years, the institution regularly holds quality assurance days for all academic faculties to ensure only the best global practices are being implemented across the board.

First City University College signs MOU with Future Design Star Award

Exclusive interview with Asst. Prof. Chua Huwi Huwi

How do you think the Future Design Star Award initiative will benefit your students at First City University College?

This is a good opportunity! Besides showing their work in the classroom, it’s another opportunity to showcase their work to the public. This will also help them [get] more serious in terms of their presentation work, their projects, so that they know [their] value. Value is not just in classroom exercises, but also when it’s showcased in a magazine and so on! [It’s] something to be proud of.

What do you want to see more out of FDSA moving forward?

Activities besides classroom learning! More of a sharing from the professionals, because within institutions, we need a lot of industry support. The course itself is actually very practical, very hands on, very much industry-based, so we need industry professionals also coming in, joining us as part of the presentations and so on. Sharing sessions of actual project[s], that’s the most interesting! For example, I invited a designer to come in [for] a talk [on] a very famous company in Chinatown. Students [were] excited! “Oh, next time I can design that, I can do that!” This motivate[s] the students, they can see [an] actual practice [in] reality. That help[s], especially [since ACGMEDIA] has award-winning designers! You [can] see where the designs come from, the origin of the designers’ work, the background work. As educators and as students, we are more interested [in] the process behind [the scenes].

Introducing the Future Design Star Award

The 15th installation of the DOTY Awards will see the introduction of an exciting new category: the Future Design Star Award! This new award initiative seeks to discover and platform young talents within verified design institutions across the nation whose work reveals an immense level of potential for the industry.

With a unique system in place, ACGMEDIA works directly with a handful of distinguished schools and academies across Malaysia to bottleneck only the very best projects — eliminating the ambiguity of participants and solidifying the relationship between the institution and its award candidate students.

The Future Design Star Award evaluation process requires each member institution to submit a fixed number of their very best student projects. The top three students of each school will then present to a panel of esteemed judges to compete for the ultimate prize: winning at the DOTY level. Following this, the three student projects that led the institutional stage will receive their win at the DOTY 2025 Gala Dinner, where they gain access to a crowd of Malaysia’s most elite design studios and industry partners.