graduation

graduation was over.. to be honest i do not really feel any excitement, if i should feel any..

now whats ahead is to secure a job or to choose to continue down the academic route, where my family members strongly asked me to do so..

pheww....

let me just think for some while more......

boleh land

As of writing, I am on the bus back to Malaysia from Singapore. I have just attended Experience@Singapore: Electronics organized by Contact Singapore. This was a magnificent event in my opinion, as it has gave me an insight view into how is it like living in Singapore and what does the electronic sector are like in the world. I am not pretty sure whether this electronic sector will be able to keep me until end of my working life, but I am convinced that I am currently very keen in joining one of them. Although I am still not sure if any company will hire me or even call me up for an interview, I am not going to look back.

Malaysia is not a bad place to live in; after all I have managed to stay here for as long as I am in this world. It’s just that Singapore is a role model that Malaysia should be looking at and learns from them as much as needed. The government policies, the way they plan to fail, not fail to plan like in Malaysia and ended up losing billions of money such as the crooked bridge project and some other mega project. I do agree to the fact that every country is different, and the way to manage the country is different; yet I do not see anything done to shape up the good values of the people in Malaysia. Malaysians throw rubbish out from the car window, burn rubbish in the open air, water pipes burst and clean treated water flowing for days without repairs. These are just some of a bunch of other stuffs that could have been eliminated. How can a country as beautiful as Malaysia, blessed with all the natural resources, free from major natural disasters, intelligent people that invent things that are used by all the people without even noticing that they are invented by Malaysians.

Take a look at our neighbour, they have nothing to begin with besides having a strategic location being the middle point between east and west (so do we). They have such a small country size that they have to fill up the sea in order to get some precious land. Yet in such a short time, they have managed to rebrand themselves from a poor country to a world economical hub. You wouldn’t believe how many multinational companies have set up their base or offices in Singapore.

This is what Malaysia should be. Being strategically located as well, filled with natural resources, we would have became a world superpower that everyone envy and wanna get their feet on this land of wealth. I am not sure whether the current strategy employed by our government will transform us into a developed country by 2020, but what I am sure is that without the elimination of ‘tidak apa’ attitude and the maturity of the ‘earthprince’ people, ‘boleh’ land would not become ‘boleh’.

Experience@Singapore:Electronics 14th July 2010

Day 3 is an interesting day, where we visited 2 of many R&D companies in Singapore. First we visited Broadcom, where they are the leader in communications solutions for both wired and wireless. We were lucky to have Mr. Dave to give us a closing talk where we were inspired to have a career in the electronics sector. Again thanks to Contact Singapore, we were able to visit this fabulous company. After that, we visited the HDB hub, where we get a chance to understand about the housing scheme of Singapore, where most of the Singaporean lives in this government built accommodation.

Next up, we visited Infineon Technologies, where we were given a briefing by Mr. Matthieu. We were then treated to a plant tour, where we were given a chance to understand how a chip is made from scratch.

After the visit, it’s dinner time again! We were treated to the best meal of our whole event, a seafood dinner! We were brought to The Mask Restaurant, where we have had chili crab, fish head curry, nestum prawn and a few other delicious seafood. The important part, I don’t even pay a single cent for it thanks to Contact Singapore!!

When the people’s stomach is full, it’s time to burn off some of the extra calories and cholesterol from the dinner. We went to the Night Safari for a visit to the various animal enclosed in this small place. It was a wonderful place where different types of animal can be seen and a lot of them are endangered species. It became obvious that these wonderful animals like the giraffes, zebras, and others would need protection from us human by not destroying their habitat so that they can survive in this place called Earth.

Back at the hotel, some people decided to have a night out at the night club while I am sitting here in front of the computer updating the world about this wonderful event that I am lucky to be participating in. Besides, I do not like night clubs as well.

Experience@Singapore:Electronics 15th July 2010

This is the last day that we are going to have visit to the electronics sector before we depart home. As usual, we have had our breakfast at the cafe in the hotel, and then off we go to UMC (United Microelectronics Corporation). It is also located in Pasir Ris, where as I have mentioned it also houses the two other company that we have visited (SOITEC and SSMC). This Taiwan company is having the biggest plant among the few that we have visited on this event but however, it has been slightly disappointing to not be able to see their production floor due to industry nature of secrecy. Nevertheless, they are a very promising company which i see myself working for them in the future(provided that they hire me :->).

Next, we have had McDonalds for lunch due to the tight schedule that we have. I have chose for a McSpicy (called so instead of Spicy Chicken McDeluxe in Malaysia) the previous day when they have asked all of us to choose our food. We reached the Land Transport Authority of Singapore Gallery just in time. Here, we were provided with information about the land transport history in Singapore and how they have improved over the time. Ideas behind ERP, how they reduce congestions on the road and many other things were explained. We also have chance to be able to use the simulator, where we experienced the various results from the decisions that we have decided for Singapore land transportation. It was fun and very lucky to be able to visit this place, thanks to Contact Singapore.

After we are done with the tour around the gallery, we paid a visit to MediaTek Singapore, where they are one of the top leading fabless semiconductor company. We have had a knowledgeable trip to this company, where we were exposed to various jobs that an engineer are expected to do. The participant's mood for this final visit to the electronics-related companies are mixed, where some participants are getting excited to be able to go home due to homesick and the rest having some degree of sadness where they are going to be separated from their new friends which they have made along this event. Nevertheless, technology have enabled all of us to be able to keep in touch with each other easily and this whole bus full of soon-to-be engineers will certainly help to shape this world so that it will become increasingly easy for people to keep in touch.

The participants exchanged details before they parted ways for the final night out in this city with lively nightlife. As for us Nottingham boys, we have decided to head for Orchard Road to eat one of the very few only-found-in-Singapore food(at least to me): the bak chor mee. This place is recommended by Tracy Won, where according to her those better tasting ones are far away. We ended the day with a walk around Bugis and the back to Orchard Road before going back to the hotel by bus. It is now time to pack our bags, have a good sleep, say bye bye to the new friend that we have made and back to our respective countries. I would like to thank Contact Singapore and of course all the people that have made this event happen. It has certainly gave me a very good and memorable first trip down to the orchid land called Singapore.

Experience@Singapore:Electronics 13th July 2010

Day 2 started off with a visit to SSMC (System on Silicon Manufacturing Corporation) located in Pasir Ris, where a few world leading companies have set up their wafer manufacturing facilities over here. This is one of a few multi-national companies which we will visit throughout the whole event. Being a company which were started up by two industry leading company which are TSMC and NXP, they proved to be very successful where they have access to different patents owned by the two parent company.

Next on, we have lunch at a food court in AMK before we travel to Fusionopolis to have a tour there. I do not think any other travel tours can bring us to a visit here. Thanks to Contact Singapore, I were able to visit this splendid place. Fusionopolis is a very beautiful place, where we can oversee a very big part of Singapore by looking down from the Sky Garden located at the top of the building. As we are the second group for the tour, we spent some time on the Sky Garden before proceeding to the exhibition center. Fusionopolis also houses the A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research). There are a lot of wonderful technologies in this exhibition center, where I felt that it would not be very far from mass production and could help in making our world a better place.

Moving on, we went back to Pasir Ris again, where we visited another wafer foundry called Soitec. They are the company which own the Smart Cut technology patent to fabricate SOI (silicon on insulator) wafers cost effective and high manufacturability in mass production and have just recently set up a company based in Singapore. They currently house around 100 employees here and are expanding rapidly. Although we can see that the production floor has not many machines despite having high end transport railing for the wafers, they have prepared this plant for further expansion which will in long run will be better economically.

As the night closes by, we head to Katong for dinner. We first have some Nyonya-style appetizers which include ang ku kueh, dumplings, layered cake and others. After that, we have the famous chicken rice for our dinner! It was accompanies with a few tasty side dishes which include toufu, bean sprout and a few more dishes. The chili sauce was magnificent and everyone have had a filial dinner. That doesn’t stop there! We were then served with a few Asian fruits which were the durian, mangosteen and rambutan. It was certainly fun looking the foreigners eating beside the street and can be seen that those passersby and those driving car were giving them a peek. The participants do enjoyed a lot which was proven with a clean sweep of all the fruits available on the table.

It can be seen that they do share the same food as we have in Malaysia, except that you do not need to travel here and there to have magnificent food. A trip to MBS casino for a walk and some entertainment ends our day.

Experience@Singapore:Electronics 12th July 2010

The day started with a greeting from the cute lady called Yuwen(again, does all Yuwen act like this?reminds me of a friend from my university) at the lobby, where she patiently waited and introduced herself to each and every participant.

This 5 day event started with a transit on bus to Raffles City Tower, where the Singapore EDB (Economic Development Board) office is located. We were given name tags and a introduction to all the people to make this program a success and all the key people in MOM and EDB (more abbreviations to come. Be prepared!! This is Singapore!!). We also knew from here that some media crew from Taiwan and China are here over to report on the whole event, unfortunately none from Malaysia or Singapore.

Later, the people's stomach started to growl. We departed over to Bumbu Restaurant, where we had some peranakan food. It doesn't taste that bad considering peranakan people does not settle down in Singapore first before Malacca, in fact there were few dishes which were given thumbs up by us Malaysian joining this program.

Next, we visited our first company, which is called Avago Technologies. We were given a brief introduction about the company, where the company was a spun-off from Agilent Technologies, where in turn belonged to HP at one time. Many questions were raised throughout the visit by ultra lively participants, where it seems to be an investor visit rather than potential employees visit. The reason I say so is due to the fact that the participants asked questions about the direction of the company, why not this and why not that, which are many time, the decision of the board of directors. However, it does give me a good knowledge on some of the reasoning behind decisions made by the company. As questions came flowing seemingly unstoppable, we will have to call it off for a tea and sharing session, where everyone have their time to talk with some of the engineers and the managers in the company.

Soon after this visit, we visited marina barrage reservoir, where the country had tried to contain the water from flowing into the sea to make it a freshwater reservoir. We also paid a visit to the exhibition center where it houses the model of facilities needed to sustain the system. After this visit, we departed back to the hotel for some free and easy time to spend spurring the country's economy by touring around the city and spending money.

We spent the night having some food in the food court of Central mall located in Clarke Quay, and a long night walk to the Merlion for some photo taking sessions and also the newly opened MBS (Marina Bay Sands), and walk back all the way to the hotel.

This first day of the event went on very well, as we have had chance to mingle around with people with different nationalities, and of course the people from Contact Singapore especially Yu Wen and Tracy Won, where they have gave us a lot of information regarding living in Singapore and a reliable source as they have lived in Singapore for their whole life. This is a very good experience, as there are no other agencies would have afford to pay a lot of money for us to come here and experience life in Singapore without any obligations.

Experience@Singapore: Electronics 12-16 July 2010

The story started back weeks ago...

I have came across this Contact Singapore event where they provide us, final year students and fresh grad with a insight view into working and living in Singapore, where focus is given into the electronics sector, obviously since we are or are to be grads from the electronic department of respective schools.

They have made phone interviews with me, informing what to expect and the program flow, and after the acceptance into the program, bus ticket was bought and all the travelling gears are out again for the trip down to the island country, Singapore. I have decided to take a bus due to its relatively cheap price compared to a flight.

I arrived in the afternoon at Singapore; where before boarding the bus I just happen to know that one of my classmates are taking the same bus with me for the same program. A save in taxi fares to the hotel!

The hotel that we were arranged to stay was the Studio M hotel, a new hotel within walking distance of Clarke Quay. Right after me and my classmate, Kin Fong left our bags, we went straight to Vivocity to meet my roommate, the icon of University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus department of electronic school of electronic engineering year 3 students ( LOL!). He had arrived earlier on with a flight and has been shopping around until we reached Singapore.

From then on, it's fun time! We have shopped around the mall, have some fun time in RWS (Resort World Sentosa) casino (although not that fun to lose some I call 'entertainment fees' to the dealer), had dinner and went back to the hotel by taxi again. We have nearly waited for 1 hour for the taxi queue, which was quite a tiring thing. So people, remember not to be so smart to take a cab on a Sunday night around Vivocity. We slept not too late in preparation for the next day's opening day event.