News
Expat Magazine Article
7th February 2011
How are your New Year resolutions going? Really? Oh well, you can always set some new ones during the Lunar New Year this month.
You could say that the Lunar New Year is the festival of the year in Penang due to the significant proportion of the population being of Chinese decent and that the celebrations go on for 15 days. A custom started in Penang can be seen on the final day of the Lunar New Year – Chap Goh Meh, where unmarried ladies throw tangerines into the sea in the hope that their future spouse will pick it up. The Lambs will definitely be watching along Gurney Drive on the 17th to see if any ladies are using catapults as the water seems to be moving further and further out each year!
Love will be in the air this month as Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Book your table early and you too can experience an intimate dinner with your loved one whilst listening to locals slurping their spaghetti (true story!).
On a different tack, we had the opportunity recently to have a tour of St. Nicholas Home that has been assisting the visually impaired since 1926 by offering occupational skills training and support. The reason the visit was initiated was to take a look at their Open Air Sculpture Gallery which contains a piece by Femke Ligthart (see Penang Personalities for more) following a request from the editor to do an article on Femke’s work.
Although we pass by the St. Nicholas Home many times a week we were pleasantly surprised at the scope of services that St. Nic’s offers and that may be unknown to the expat community. Did you know for example that St. Nic’s train masseuses and for a very reasonable fee you can go for a relaxing foot massage in their centre? Also, did you know that cakes prepared during the kitchen skills training are available for purchase?
One initiative that caught Colin’s attention is the work that St. Nicholas Home are doing in the field of Bahasa Malaysia to Braille translation. We were introduced to Dr. Peter Knox of L-Ex who, along with St. Nic’s staff, are developing a Bahasa Malaysia to Braille conversion utility that incorporates an Optical Character Recognition component to make visual translation all but seamless. Such technology is being harnessed to give complete literary translations that are invaluable in terms of interpretation and a hard copy is also created for their library.
Being an iPhone user, Colin was also impressed how Dr. Knox has a broader interest in developing phone technology for the visually impaired, which is like saying “the phone for the blind is like a car for the sighted”. We wish these initiatives well in terms of securing funds for development and their future implementation.
That’s all for February, hope to see many of you at the Quiz Night on 12th. Please email us at upnorth@theexpatgroup.com for more details. As always, suggestions for articles/information you would like to see are most welcome so please contact us at upnorth@theexpatgroup.com
Star Newspaper Article
16th November 2009
Recent developments in the software industry in Malaysia provide innovators with new opportunities to implement and deploy medium to large scale solutions rapidly. The availability of mature and rigorously designed multi-platform open source freeware coupled with an increasingly confident group of software engineering companies such as Mimos in the Northern region to embark on more ambitious development projects and training programs. As Software Consortium Penang (SCoPe) chairman Jeffrey Lim recently noted (Star, March 19, 2009) “The economic crisis has actually created new business opportunities for SCOPE members”, largely due to necessary outsourcing from multinationals. Whist many industry players were floundering, it is encouraging that SCoPe’s 70 members enjoyed a growth of US$236mil from the years 2007 to 2008. The recent engagement by SCoPe in creating an enabling business environment for the member companies via the SCoPe Global Connect Project amounting to RM1.0 million has indeed provided one new start-up company a boost in building a strong foundation that is key to success for any business venture. The Project is funded under the Services Sector Capacity Development Fund (SSCDF) established by the Government to address the impact of liberalization on local service providers. Most SCoPe’s member companies are trying to further expand into foreign markets and they consider it crucial to improve the knowledge and skills that ensure the gathered skills are sustainable in the global market-space. Critical to building successful international market access is educating and maintaining SCoPE’s partners in product knowledge. The main allocation of the Project is, therefore, to develop an effective management, communication and learning platform to facilitate these activities; a comprehensive learning facilitator that fully developed will enable participating companies to proactively evolve Channel Partnerships on a federated forum to fulfill all their business collaboration and training initiatives. Inevitably, the platform shall be established in the On-Demand or Software as a Service model.
Accordingly Dr Peter Knox and his management team have been enabled to launch a leading edge development shop along the lines of the successful software development models previously launched and rolled out in the UK and Europe. L-Ex Enterprise Sdn Bhd has been recently incorporated to implement a learning exchange (hence L-Ex) which is a generic framework for the modeling and integration of a host of diverse content and training modules for the now ubiquitous web-based mobile environment. L-Ex decrees that the advantage of the framework approach is its applicability to different industry sectors and it is due to conduct a pilot in the health care sector and in learning institutions in January 2010. L-Ex is also actively involved with the charitable and religious sectors such as the International Buddhist College in Thailand.
At the core of the platform is an intelligent agent pioneered by Dr Peter in the form of two world-wide patents which he believes can be readily implemented using the latest Java based software frameworks. He also states that the management team has already been highly impressed by the quality and keenness to learn of their initial graduate recruits some of whom have joined from KDU Penang. In keeping with the prevailing ethos L-Ex is keen to make their innovations open.
Dr Peter also feels privileged to be offered a role as Advisory Board Member and Project Consultant to the IT department to KDU Penang where he was previously a lecturer. He says, “This is an exciting opportunity for both parties as L-Ex will have access to the cream of third year software graduates and benefit from a keen intern pool. L-Ex has an aggressive outlook and the more warriors we can acquire the better and KDU will surely benefit from high quality project supervision and mentoring from our senior developers and business analysts.”
KDU College offers the Certificate in Information Technology, Diploma in Computer Studies, Diploma in Games Technology, and Degree in Computing Studies. The IT Department in KDU College continues to build relationships with local and national businesses and IT companies in Northern Malaysia and the Klang Valley.
Its graduates are highly sought after by employers in Malaysia both for work experience and employment.
For further information see www.l-ex.com.my , www.kdupg.edu.my
KDU College students have the ability to shine in their chosen fields because of the institution’s style of teaching and exchanging knowledge.
Star Online, January 3, 2010
ENCOURAGED by the excellent results of its A-Level students this year, the Centre for Pre-University Studies at KDU College Penang (KDU Penang) is enthusiastic about its new pre-university studies package just introduced this month.
The new programme is similar to the system in international schools and incorporates the Cambridge Supervisory System, which has a day-long, school-based teaching method that allows students to explore their subjects in depth with experts and a community of scholars.
This unique approach gives lecturers ample opportunities to inspire students to study hard, find solutions to problems and facilitate an exchange of knowledge, a process which sparks a desire in students to accept challenges and excel in their undertakings.
A-Level science students in the college laboratory
Students will enjoy an intellectually challenging and stimulating learning environment that provides them with a platform to test out their theories and advance their own ideas.
It is a formula the college feels so confident about that they are offering a first-of-its-kind warranty for free repeat classes, should students fail their examinations.
KDU Penang principal Dr Chong Beng Keok believes the “sure pass” or “free repeat” assurance would inspire students to aim high and build their confidence in unleashing their leadership, management and thinking skills.
“With the structured system, which facilitates ample lecturer-student discussions, we’re certain that students will acquire the necessary knowledge not only to pass the exams, but to set higher standards and achieve their goals,” she enthused.
Dr Chong added that apart from good academic results, top-ranking universities were now looking out for students with other outstanding qualities and skills.
“Our approach is to develop a student’s soft skills and make them well-rounded individuals, which in turn would give them a great advantage,” she said.
She added that KDU Penang also had one of the most impressive post-SPM high-achiever scholarship schemes in the northern region, which is 100% merit-based.
“As long as a student is qualified, he or she will receive the scholarship.
“It is purely based on merit, and we do not look at their financial backgrounds,” she explained.
There are many scholarships available, ranging from the Teo Soo Pin Scholarship, Bursary Award, High Achiever’s Scholarship and Quantum Scholarship, offering various amounts, including full tuition fee waivers, depending on a student’s results.
Other scholarships available include the Principal Scholarship, which covers 50% to 100% of tuition fees for those with good academic results and extra-curricular activities, while the Sports Scholarship offers similar amounts for national and state-level athletes.
The Star Education Fund is also offering a Joint Scholarship for deserving students.
The college also offers certificate, diploma and degree programmes in Information Technology that equip students with a broad and deep knowledge of the theoretical, practical and managerial aspects of the IT industry.
Courses offered include the Certificate in Information Technology, Diploma in Computer Studies, Diploma in Games Technology, BSc (Hons) in Computing Studies and MSc in Business Information Technology — all in collaboration with Northumbria University from the United Kingdom.
In the hope of getting students to be actively engaged in projects sparked by recent developments in the local software industry, the college has hired veteran software engineer Dr Peter Knox as an Advisory Board member and project consultant.
Dr Chong says the institution will also focus on developing a student’s soft skill.
Dr Knox cited Software Consortium Penang (Scope) chairman Jeffrey Lim’s recent view that the economic crises had actually created new business opportunities for Scope members, mainly due to outsourcing from large multinational companies seeking to cut costs.
This, he said, had contributed to a rising demand for high-calibre IT graduates.
Dr Knox has been creating and implementing a learning exchange (L-Ex) programme — a generic framework for the modeling and integration of a host of diverse content and training modules for the increasingly popular web-based environment.
The advantage the framework offers is its applicability to different industry sectors.
“This is an exciting opportunity for both parties as L-Ex will have access to the cream of third-year software graduates who can be hired as interns,” said Dr Knox, who was formerly a lecturer at the college.
“It also gives them an opportunity to gain real life experience and share knowledge with industry experts,” he added.
KDU College Penang is a contributor to the Star Education Fund.
