My Convocation

Saturday, 14th June 2008, was my convocation day, and what a day it was indeed!!

When me and my parents reached the College Hall at around 8am, I was greeted by my friends, which told me that I won the Perpetual Cup, which was:

The Perpetual Cup, donated by friends from Campbell University and Ulster University is awarded to the student who upon having completed the requirements for the award of the Degree of Bachelor of Science of Campbell University, is selected by the Head and Faculty as the most outstanding student of the Senior Class considering academic achievements, character, integrity and leadership potential.

(Quoted from Convocation Booklet)

To add to that, I also won the Prize for Information Systems, which was 2 awards out of 7 excellence awards! I was so soo happy! And I must say it took quite some effort to stop myself from jumping around like a crazy maniac.

TARC Imagine Day covered by the press!

I just found out that the News Straits Times have published their article on the TARC Imagine Day, to find out more, check out these link (both the same article) at YellowBrixIndustryWatch and LexisNexis News (These names rhyme, but are pretty weird).

Below is an excerpt of the published article:

“IT is amazing to see students with creative imagination bring the latest innovation into the world. One place which gives them the platform to share their knowledge and innovation is Microsoft’s premier student competition, the Imagine Cup, which encourages young people to apply their imagination, passion and creativity to tech innovations.

Themed Imagine a World Where Technology Enables a Sustainable Environment, next year’s Imagine Cup World Finals will be held from July 3 to July 8 in Paris, France. The competition will gather young programmers, students, and technologists from around the globe.

To prepare students for the competition, Tunku Abdul Rahman College (TARC) and Microsoft Malaysia recently launched TARC Imagine Day 2007 to cultivate more ICT expertise and drive innovation among students.

TARC’s Imagine Day has become one of the college’s key flagship events. The college created a programme based on Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition model, establishing a platform where the students and faculty members can participate and share ideas and knowledge on technology solutions, providing an avenue for them to expand their creative skills to generate solutions that are effective in combating global social issues. “

Thank You so much Shyla Sangaran (News Straits Times) for writing such a splendid article on Imagine Day 2007.

TARC Imagine Day 2007

Its been some time since I last blogged, which was almost 4 months ago, and it was in these 4 months that me and my friends organised one of the biggest school events ever, the Imagine Day.

The Imagine Day 2007 is organized by the Microsoft Student Partners of TAR College, and the Computer Science Society, and thanks to the the full support of the School of Arts & Science of TAR College, and the sponsorship and collaboration from Microsoft, everything is made possible.

The objective of the Imagine Day is to make a difference in the lives of students, by exposing students to the worlds premier technology competition for students, the Imagine Cup.

Thus, we have organised a scaled down version of the Imagine Cup, the TARC Imagine Cup, with various categories, which are:

We managed to get 183 participants, which is much much more than the total Malaysian participants of the Imagine Cup last year, where we prepared many classes to expose them to the latest tools and technologies, to better prepare each and everyone of them to compete in the Imagine Cup.

The finals of these competitions are held on the Imagine Day, where teams came head to head, and only the best team wins.

We are also prouder than ever to have Joe Wilson, Senior Director of Academic Initiatives for Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Corp. (US) as an attending VIP, to officiate the opening ceremony of Imagine Day.

In his opening speech, he mentioned that 30 or more years ago, there were a few students that sat down, and believed that in the future, each and every household would own a PC, and today, they have formed one of the biggest technology companies in history, Microsoft.

He went on to say that the Imagine Cup is one of the biggest technology competition ever, and is organized for and students, and even the Imagine Day, its all organized for students.

It was a monumental speech, and I was more than honoured to bring him around to tour the various booths of the event, where he couldn’t stop snapping pictures all around the place, and it was absolutely fantastic that he, and the other VIPs, were all impressed with the whole event.

We, the organizing committee, took 3 full days, from morning to night, even skipping some meals (and some classes ), to set up the Imagine Day venue, but it only took an hour or so to dismantle everything.

As I stared around when everyone was dismantling everything, the first thing that came to my mind was what Joe Wilson quoted from the Vice Principal of TAR College, Mr. Yeow -

“It takes hours to cook a meal, but only a short amount of time to eat it”

Very true indeed, organizing the Imagine Day and the TARC Imagine Cup took us around 4 months, and it all ended, just within a day.

I’m immensely proud and honoured to be the Organizing Chairperson of this monumental event, getting to know and work alongside many fantastic people, learning to deal with the many ups and downs, it has been an experience of a lifetime!

Finally, I would like to say Thank You, to the organizing committee, to the faculty of SAS, and to those from Microsoft, and each and everyone, who made a difference, and made all of this possible!

PS: I will upload some Imagine Day Wallpapers shortly, stay tuned