Dr. Fernando Lourenço led Culinary Arts Management programme students from the Macao Institute for Tourism Studies (IFTM) to support Aphelion Media Limited on a project to help Medan Indonesia Restaurant to rejuvenate its forty-seven years old brand. This project belongs to a government scheme initiated by the Macao Economic Bureau to help established old brands to enhance their competitiveness.

These year-four Culinary Arts students conducted numerous visit to the restaurant to assess the quality of service and dishes, they conducted market and industry analysis before proposing innovative ways to prepare, cook, garnish and present the dishes offered by Medan Indonesia Restaurant to meet the fast changing market. In order to provide students with additional space and resources to support their work, a newly opened co-working space called the Hub-Macau offered students free accessibility to their facilities until the end of the project aiming to facilitate a “triple helix of university-industry-government” relationship to nurture potential for innovation and economic development.

James Luo from Aphelion Media Limited, Sam Sugiarto from Medan Indonesia Restaurant and Dr. Fernando Lourenço from IFTM were intrigued by the outcomes because many innovative ideas were proposed and valuable insights were shared as a result of the research and development.