Tuesday, September 30, 2008

2 Books on Managers

After work just now, I went to Borders Times Square and spent about 2 hours there reading. It is always great to be spending time reading and reflecting on my mind.

Today, my pick of reading was Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. It was a great read, of how a guy named Simon influenced his superior, Greg and they have various initiatives to stem the turnover rate of their janitor business. At one point, the turnover rate was 400%, and they managed to reduce to 12%.

They utilized various means to fulfill what the workers needs are. Sometimes, it is not about salary. Initially, they chartered vans and buses to bring them to work, because of their workplace was very hard to go, and hence truancy was very high. Even sick leave was high.

After that, they realized that these people do not manage to live their dream. Essentially, they are just living day by day on their life. So, they started this concept of having "Dream Manager", where their job is to help the employees to fulfill their dream. They work together with the employees, and it was interesting to see how the employees react to that and improved their productivity, as well as many aspects of their life.

It is a good read. So, try to get hold of it!

Another book that I read just now was The New Manager's Handbook - 24 Lessons for Mastering Your New Role .

It is a refreshing read and allows me to reflect on my past 5 months in JobStreet.com and see what I should change and improve on myself. Particularly in terms of communication, how I think, how I do my work etc. How can I get more things done, get more trust/support from others, how I learn from others etc.

And when I read those tips, I actually reflect on what those leaders/supervisors in JobStreet.com do, and I would say that many of the things they do really embody what are the advised things to do. Am fortunate to have a good place to learn, and grow myself professionally and personally.

It is a long journey, but I am keeping fingers' crossed that it would continue to be great learning ground for me, and hopefully, I am able to contribute my bits to the firm too!


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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Documentary on Cornell

Thanks to Susan Chang from Cornell Club of Singapore, I managed to get a chance to watch a 1-hour documentary on my alma mater -- Cornell - Birth of the American University. It was an interesting documentary, where President Lehman and also some current/ex university archivist were featured in it.

It showcased how Cornell started, from Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White. It was very powerful story of seeing how Ezra Cornell worked hard for many years and used his fortune to donate to build Cornell University, and it tapped on the top brain of AD White and AD White became the 1st Cornell President. He helped to recruit a bunch of top notch faculty and that started Cornell in 1868. This year, it is 140 years already.

It really showed how they were passionate to educate the future generation, and wanted to leave a legacy. Ezra Cornell didn't even have proper education. he was educated up to 3rd grade only, but he realized the importance of education and he has been using lifelong learning himself and have always been very observant.

Watching it definitely brought back a lot of memory for me. While the flow of the story is very slow (especially at the start), I would say that it is nostalgic. Looking at how Cornell was in the early days and then look at some of the recent photos. That brought back 4 years of my memorable there in Cornell!

If any of the aspiring Cornellians or even current Cornellians or Cornell alumni want to watch this, just let me know!

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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Monday, September 29, 2008

Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman

One of the books that I read today at Borders Times Square and The Curve (yeah, both borders) is Hot, Flat and Crowded .

It was by Thomas Friedman. And I would say that it is a great book for us to reflect about our earth. I have just finished about 150 pages, and I would say that it is a good book for us to reflect. If you had read "The World is Flat", then, you would like this one too.

It brought us back to senses on the climate issues that we face around the world, and the growing impact of the middle class around the world. There are a lot of people who desire to live a life, similar to the luxurious life that Americans do today.

Friedman tries to bring forth idea of America revolutionize, by creating the example of leading a "green" life and have "Code Green". That way, the rest of the world would follow it in that manner.

Do check it out!


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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

MSC Malaysia Job Camp

Thanks to my loyal blog reader for sharing this.

This is a great opportunity for those who want to explore for IT sector. Great to see MDeC putting in a lot of effort for our IT graduates! They have been working very closely with JobStreet.com to stimulate interest of Malaysians on IT sector, including going to secondary schools to talk on "IT is cool!".

The following MSC Malaysia Job Camp is quoted from here

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Job Camp
Job camp is designed specifically for any Knowledge worker who wants to improve or expand their current ICT skills and knowledge. This program seeks to help knowledge workers with the support and access to courses and trainings to stay aligned with the current needs of the ICT industry.

Opportunities Created through the MSC Malaysia Job Camp
Available K-Workers and the Malaysian ICT industry can benefit from the Job Camp programme. This is achieved by:

Available K-Workers
Enhance employability in the job market.
Improve their knowledge and skill sets and also stay abreast of the latest trends and best practices.
ICT Industry
Readily available talent pool.

Programme Details
Job Camp period ranges from one to six months of training

Cost of programme:
FREE training for successful applicants.
Note: Does not include food, transportation and accommodation.

Who can participate
Available K-Workers (currently unemployed, in-between jobs, changing fields, retrenched)
Malaysian graduates.
Must obtain CGPA 2.5 and above
Hold at least a Diploma in IT-related fields
Anyone who is interested to pursue a career in the ICT industry.

How to apply
It’s easy, just:

Fill up the online application form here
And wait for approvals from us. Our system will notify you of your status.

Fast Facts
Target:
K-workers available for employment

Objective:
To equip K-workers with the relevant training for available positions such as Java Application Developers, Animators, Server Administrators, etc.

Key Benefits:
JC provides free training to available k-workers (currently unemployed, in-between jobs, changing fields, retrenched) to develop skill sets required to meet existing vacancies in MSC Malaysia.

For more information
CliC
MSC MALAYSIA CLIENT CONTACT CENTRE
E-mail: clic@mdec.com.my
Tel: 1-800-88-8338 (within Malaysia)
Tel: +6 03 8315 3000 (outside Malaysia)
Fax: +603 8315 3115



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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

National Entrepreneurs Week

Thanks to my loyal blog reader for sharing this.

Entrepreneurship is definitely a great skill to have, and it is great to see that many people are working hard to grow our Entrepreneurs in the country.

This is quoted from NST
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WITH the biggest entrepreneurship event happening in November, there is still much preparation to be done on the part of Malaysian host, Warisan Global Sdn Bhd.

Warisan Global Chief Executive Officer Dhakshinamoorthy Balakrishnan would like to see greater participation from tertiary institutions.

He hopes to get more universities and colleges involved in the upcoming Global Entrepreneurship Week (the Week), happening on Nov 17-23.

"All they have to do is to register online, think up of an activity to do during the Week and get the word out," says Dhakshinamoorthy.

The idea is not to organise big "splashy" events but those with substance that will get students thinking about entrepreneurship and creativity.

Dhakshinamoorthy gives the example of an Indian secondary school that held an entrepreneurship contest for its students during India's Enterprise Week.

The students' parents gave their children 50 rupees (RM3.70) each and whoever could make the most from the amount given won.

One class pooled its money together, approached a nearby shopping centre and offered to do a report on why there were few customers there for 10,000 rupees.

At the end of it, the students gave a full report to the shopping centre and they were paid the amount they had asked for.

"I think only a small number of university students is thinking like entrepreneurs -- most just want to get their exams out of the way, find work and move on," says Dhakshinamoorthy.

It is important for students to look at entrepreneurship not just as an alternate career path but also as something that enables them to be value creators whether they are self-employed or salaried workers.

In today's workplace, employees are expected to multitask so job seekers have to think like entrepreneurs to be deemed valuable enough to be employed.

"Entrepreneurial thinking is the most important skill for survival in the 21st century," says Dhakshinamoorthy.

Another important skill is thinking globally -- bearing in mind not just Malaysia but the world when starting a business.

A 2006 report by the International Labour Office entitled Stimulating Youth Entrepreneurship: Barriers and Incentives to Enterprise Start-ups by Young People underlines the importance of entrepreneurship.

It states that the world's population is growing at a time when traditional, stable labour markets are shrinking. It also estimates that 47 per cent of all unemployed persons globally are young men and women and 660 million young people will either be working or looking for jobs in 2015.

Nineteen organisations have signed up to be partners for the Week, including Multimedia Development Corporation, TechPenang.com, the Technopreneurs Association of Malaysia, the Cradle Investment Programme, Ideapreneur.net, tertiary institutions and the Energy, Water and Telecommunications Ministry.

Warisan Global hopes to get many more to facilitate programmes in every state that will reach out to a bigger Malaysian audience.

The Week will feature two signature events -- Unleash It, an online activity where anyone can put up a challenge for future entrepreneurs; and Speed Network the Globe, where participants can speed network with participants from more than 60 countries.

As a precursor to the Week, Oli Barrett, a speed networking expert from the United Kingdom, will be in Malaysia this Wednesday as part of his Whistlestop Tour to promote the activity.

It involves a roomful of people, a whistle and a series of three-minute bursts of networking rounds.

It will be held at Wisma MCA, Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur from 11am to noon.

Attendance is free.

To find out more about the Whistlestop Tour and the Week, visit www.gewmalaysia.com or www.unleashingideas.org or email gew@warisanglobal.com


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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Accenture using Second Life to Hire

Being in recruitment industry, I am always on the look out for interesting ways of companies hiring and see whether there is any innovative way that JobStreet.com could employ. (I know I blogged quite a bit on JobStreet.com, but I would say that it is because I really believe in what JobStreet.com is doing - Improving Lives Through Better Careers).

While some of you may point out some of the weaknesses of JobStreet.com, I definitely welcome those feedback. JobStreet.com is not perfect, and we are always striving to improve ourselves, and it is with your feedback, that we try to improve it.

Okie, back to this topic. This is an article that I found on how Accenture (yes, my previous company), in utilizing Second Life for recruitment. The link is here .

Fully quoted below and enjoy reading!

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Global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company Accenture has 180,000 employees and offices in 49 countries and brings thousands of new employees on board every year. As you might imagine, recruitment in a professional services company this size is a mission-critical business process. Accenture is already quite successful with new college grads — BusinessWeek named the company #8 in “Best Places to Launch a Career in 2007.” To even more effectively reach what the company thinks of as the “Facebook audience,” in March of 2008 Accenture launched a careers island in Second Life.

The island features fairly traditional-looking reception and meeting spaces designed to “feel like Accenture” and effectively represent the corporate brand in a way that is appropriate in Second Life. Accenture uses the island to network with prospective employees, answer questions job candidates have, and meet candidates that recruiters couldn’t easily get together with otherwise (e.g., students in universities Accenture couldn’t visit on a road show). The Accenture Careers island also offers a series of interactive games to engage peoples’ minds (e.g., memorize as many details about a complex picture as you can, or calculate the counterbalance required to catapult your avatar onto a landing pad) or encourage teamwork (e.g., balance your avatar on a disk while not knocking other avatars off their disks). Signage is available in six languages. To help Accenture marketing and HR folks easily leverage the island for their recruiting and networking events, the project team developed and distributed “how to” tools, templates (e.g., for marketing communications), and best practices information.

Many groups at Accenture had been dabbling in Second Life since the fall of 2006 – like Accenture Technology Labs, the Accenture Media Agency in Milan, and recruitment marketing teams in both France and the U.S. The Global Recruitment Marketing team, another early experimenter within the company, began to see a pattern in all the little successes and took the lead on assembling the necessary funds and talent to launch an island that could be used company-wide. In late July I spoke with Suzan L. Raycroft in Accenture Global Recruitment Marketing, who shared some insights into why Accenture considers this investment a success so far:

The centralized investment in the Second Life island paid for itself after 5-6 events. While the company doesn’t disclose the specific results of its marketing programs, it has found “a decent number of” hires through events held in-world. The investment in the island paid for itself after just 5 or 6 networking and recruiting events. (See the related ThinkBalm article, At Microsoft, cost of virtual events about 1/3 the cost of traditional events.) If you think about recruitment at Accenture taking place in 49 countries, and each of these countries using the Accenture Careers island rather than building its own, the cost savings really start to stack up. Also, recruiting becomes more standardized across the regions as people start to use the same materials and processes.

A critical success factor: a multi-faceted support program for internal users. Accenture has found that most recruiters are not yet comfortable going in-world, finding the candidate they’re supposed to meet with, escorting him or her to a private table, and having a successful text chat. So Global Recruitment Marketing put a lot of effort into making it easy for recruiters to use Second Life. The team holds meetings, calls, and tours with recruiters and created a guide on how to sign up in Second Life, create an avatar, walk, sit, chat, etc. The team sends out regular emails featuring best practices and alerting recruiting staff to new programs or tools. The department’s internal portal has a section dedicated to Second Life where the team posts what countries have done, results, what worked and didn’t, etc.

Accenture, like many other companies, has high hiring targets for tech-savvy people. Candidates display at least a modicum of technical skill if they can create Second Life accounts and relatively professional-looking avatars, find their way to the Accenture Careers island and the specific meeting location, and communicate with the recruiter via text chat or voice. And Second Life allows Accenture to interact with a geographically wide pool of prospective employees. Digital metrics provider comScore found that in March of 2007, 61% of active Second Life residents were from Europe, 19% from North America, and 13% from Asia Pacific.

While not a replacement (yet, anyway) for traditional recruitment techniques, Second Life as a recruiting and interviewing tool is a great enhancement for Accenture. In essence, the company is pre-qualifying its recruitment leads by ensuring that candidates have the needed technical skill and gaining insight into personal style and communication and social skills once a candidate reaches the island. And Second Life allows Accenture to leverage its global resources, recruiting and interviewing around the globe and around the clock.




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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Accenture has Record Revenue, EPS, Booking, Operating Income, Cash Flow

Time flies (I know this is so cliche), and it is about 5 months since I left Accenture. A few days ago, I walked back into Accenture's office for the 1st time since I left to meet with HR folks there, on behalf of JobStreet.com . The feeling is so special. A place that is so familiar. Nothing much changed, especially in the setting of the office etc.

Lots of memory I had in Accenture, and to be frank, I missed the people there. The camaraderie that I had there, is definitely something that I enjoy thoroughly. The caring nature of people, especially since we are from the same age group.

And today, I woke up to see that Accenture share price went up from 37.17 to 39.55. That's an up of 6.4%. It is due to record breaking revenue, booking, margin etc for Accenture for 4th Quarter of this fiscal year (June to August 2008) and also for the entire financial year (September 2007 to August 2008). Looks like my friends in Accenture would be having a great bonus this year! I know Accenture's bonus may not be fabulous, but would be better. :)

For me, not too bad too. 50 cents of dividend per Accenture share. That is a rise from 42 cents for 2007, 35 cents for 2006 and 30 cents for 2005. Not a lot for me, but at least it is showing that Accenture is growing. That's like interest of 1.25%.

For full results of Accenture's financial results, go to here

Some parts of it is quoted below.
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NEW YORK; Sept. 25, 2008 — Accenture (NYSE: ACN) reported strong financial results for the fourth quarter and record results for the full 2008 fiscal year, ended Aug. 31, 2008, including its highest-ever annual revenues, earnings per share, bookings, operating income and cash flow.

For the fourth quarter, revenues before reimbursements (“net revenues”) were $6.00 billion, compared with $5.11 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007, an increase of 17 percent in U.S. dollars and 10 percent in local currency. Diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $0.67, compared with $0.50 in the same period last year, an increase of 35 percent. New bookings for the quarter rose to $7.67 billion, a quarterly record. Operating income for the quarter grew 22 percent, to $785 million, and operating margin expanded 50 basis points compared with the fourth quarter last year.

For the full fiscal year, net revenues were a record $23.39 billion, compared with $19.70 billion for fiscal 2007, an increase of 19 percent in U.S. dollars and 11 percent in local currency. Diluted earnings per share for the full year were $2.65, compared with $1.97 in fiscal 2007, an increase of 35 percent. New bookings for the full year reached an all-time high of $26.79 billion. Operating income for the full year grew 21 percent, to $3.01 billion, and operating margin expanded 20 basis points compared with fiscal 2007.

The company also announced that its Board of Directors has declared an annual cash dividend of $0.50 per share, an increase of $0.08 per share, or 19 percent, over its previous annual dividend.

William D. Green, Accenture’s chairman & CEO, said, “We’re very pleased with our strong fourth-quarter and full-year performance, which demonstrates our ability to deliver outstanding results, even in challenging economic conditions. We had record bookings and maintained our focus on operating discipline. We generated significant cash flow, we have no debt, and our balance sheet is rock-solid. We continue to return cash to shareholders through our fourth annual cash dividend and the repurchase of $2.3 billion of our shares during the year.

“We have continued confidence in our business, given the momentum we have from our fourth-quarter and full-year performance. With the uncertainty in the economic environment, we are even more focused on closely managing our business — through careful planning, operational discipline and superior execution — to ensure that we continue to perform and deliver value to our clients and shareholders.”

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Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Get Free Online Magazine

Thanks to Pei Chieng for sharing this link with me.

This post is definitely a good one for environmentalist. Zinio, the world's largest publisher and distributor of digital magazine has decided to give 1 free magazine access for 1 year digitally.

Do check it out at Go Read Green .

Hopefully that you would think of the environment when you read, as protecting our earth is the joint effort between all of us - citizen of the world.


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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

US Universities Applications Talks

Thanks to my blog reader for highlighting these series of talks.

There are 3 US Universities Applications Talks that would take place soon.

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My full recommendation would be to attend this one - by app2us . This is organized by a bunch of very dedicated people from India, who have benefitted from US Education and wants to give back. They would be flying in to share in KL, provided there are enough responses. And everything is free. That's their community giveback.

I have been in touch with them, and am very impressed by their commitment to give back and help people in applying to top US Universities.

They intend to give this free talk in KL on 29th October 2008. They want to touch the base to see how is the response going, before they can confirm their trip.

So, do RSVP at app2us . Go to forum, and you'll see the thread to register for KL talk. They would only be able to come, if there are sufficient responses from Malaysians. Do spread the words!
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The other two events, I would put it here, but I would not be stating my recommendation. It is up to you to evaluate.

LINDEN U.S. UNIVERSITY FAIR
Venue: JW Marriott Hotel, 183 Jalan Bukit Bintang, 55100 Kuala Lumpur
Date: October 8, 2008 (Wednesday)
Time: 5pm to 8pm
Presentations: 4:00pm - Choosing the right University
4:30pm - Insider Tips from Admissions Officers
Pre-register for the fair at www.lindentours.com

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UNIVERSITY OF EVANSVILLE ADMISSIONS OFFICER VISIT TO MACEE
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 from 1:30-3:45 pm

Why should I come to MACEE to meet a University of Evansville International Admissions Officer?

COME LEARN ABOUT:
· 50% annual tuition scholarship from University of Evansville in Indiana, USA
· Over 80 areas of study for international students
· Immediate Acceptance into University of Evansville

(Students must provide all the necessary documents listed on our website at https://www.evansville.edu/prospects/international/iadmission/interapp.asp)

Call MACEE at 2166-8788 if you would like individual appointments with Celia Teoh, International Admissions Officer. She will be available between 2:30 and 3:45 pm on Wednesday, October 8 for individual appointments. If you are not available for Wednesday, October 8, please email her directly at ct81@evansville.edu

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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Personal Viability Seminar by MACRI

Malaysian Association of Creativity & Innovation (MACRI) is organizing a half-day talk on "Personal Viability Seminar" at the Auditorium Ibnu Sina, Level 3, National Science Center on 11th October 9am to Noon.

The speaker is Samuel Tam, from Papua New Guinea. He is a successful businessmen who has trained more than 20,000 people in the Asia Pacific and Oceania regions.

It is RM40 per person, unless you are member of MACRI, NEF or MENSA, where you have to pay RM20. I would be attending this talk as well.

To attend, please RSVP with Ramesh, Secretary of MACRI at 03-6201 1928 / 017-882 8302, or fax to 03-6201 9928, or email ramesh@macri.com.my providing your name, company name and telephone no.
 
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It is a practical program that takes you through a process to discover your true self and achieve what you really want in life. It will show you what you can do to achieve a life of joy and lasting abundance, free from feelings of mediocrity and insecurity.

What is Personal Viability (PV)?

Perpetual Self-discovery & Personal Power
PV is perpetual self-discovery, perpetual re-shaping to realize one's best self, to be the person one could be. PV is about self-education, to develop from within, to educe, to draw out, and to grow through use. It is about solving one's problems, to survive and succeed. PV is finding yourself, owning yourself and being yourself.

Family
Personal Viability starts at home. One of the best gifts you can give your family is to make them viable: the development of their mind, to make use of all their talents, to be their very best, to succeed and prosper and to be self-reliant.

Turning Round Business Failures
Research indicates that 50% of new businesses do not make it past year one and only 10% make it past year four. We believe the main reason is not lack of finance, lack of skills or lack of effort but a lack of Personal Viability.

Creating an Entrepreneur Class
PV is a prerequisite to Entrepreneur Development. It is a practical philosophy, something one does. Using this thought, you can change conditions. It consists of specific axioms that define the underlying causes and principles of self-reliance and a vast area of observations in entrepreneurship; a philosophic body that literally applies to the entirety of one's life.


Who Should Attend

Business Leaders, Strategic Thinkers and Planners, Change Managers, Senior Managers in Innovation and Enterprise, Community Builders, Entrepreneurs and anyone seeking to be the best they can be.


Speaker/Trainer Profile

Samuel Tam is a businessman with a difference. He believes that the secret to successful business is to understand that all businesses are about people. At age 26, Sam created the Stretpasin Stoa Scheme (Street Person Store) to assist Papua New Guineans own and operate retail stores. The scheme achieved a remarkable 80% success rate. He was later awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to entrepreneurship among the poor. He was only 33 years old.

He began his business career with $300 and became a millionaire at age 30 majoring in wholesale warehousing and supermarkets. Recognising his ability as an entrepreneur as well as his creativity in developing business schemes to help the poor become self-reliant, he was appointed as director of the National Development Bank of PNG.

1996 was a turning point for Sam. In assisting people who had business problems, he discovered a far greater need for human development than entrepreneur development. This led to the beginnings of the EDTC Personal Viability Program, a foundational prerequisite for entrepreneurship. In year 2008, he was conferred an Officer of the Order of Logohu by Governor General Sir Paulius Matane in Papua New Guinea for services to the community and the development of grass root small businesses. The Government of Solomon Islands also has approved Samuel Tam as the Chief Adviser to the Bottom-Up Approach Policy with the Personal Viability method as a tool for implementation.


PV Testimonials

"PV has benefited me tremendously, and almost overnight, it has changed the way I think and do things…now I understand my real purpose in life and to be able to think and plan for success."
~ Henrynus Amin, Senior Special Officer to the Minister,
   Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovation, Malaysia

"The Personal Viability course as I understand have been very successful in making youths, women, prisoners and small entrepreneurs realise their self worth and capacity to really make a difference in their own lives and for the community as a whole. These courses are important for people, public servants, politicians and the private sector to become partners in development. It helps us to set aside the notion that we are mere spectators in the administration of services in our communities".
~ Sir Michael Somare, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea

"Today I have seen with my own eyes that the best and brightest minds of the world have to offer, what the millions and billions of dollars and huge machineries cannot do – the PV course has been able to achieve. It is the very expression of the economics of philanthropy, the "hands and feet" that will go anywhere to shine upon the poor and needy the light of love, love mad tangible."
~ Ivy Ho, Director, Natural Resource Ventures Pte Ltd, Singapore 


Program & Registration

08.30am – Registration Starts
09.00am – Welcome Address by Founder/President of MACRI
09.05am – Speech by Special Officer from MOSTI
09.15am – Presentation by Mr Samuel Tam (First Half)
10.30am – Tea Break
10.45am – Presentation by Mr Samuel Tam (Second Half)
12.00pm – Close

Entrance Fee is RM20 for members of MACRI, NEF and MENSA, and RM40 for members of the public. To register please contact Ramesh Pillai at 03-6201 1928 / 017-882 8302, or fax to 03-6201 9928, or email ramesh@macri.com.my providing your name, company name and telephone no.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Maxis Scholarship for Excellence Undergraduate Programme

Thanks to my loyal blog reader for sharing. This is a great scholarships for Maxis users.

This is quoted from NST

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Mobile phone service provider, Maxis Communications Bhd today launched the Maxis Scholarship for Excellence Undergraduate programme exclusively for its postpaid subscribers.

Its chief executive officer, Sandip Das, said the scholarship is open to Malaysians who have been Maxis postpaid customers continuously for a minimum of 12 months and to the children of these customers.

He said Maxis will offer a total of 40 scholarships per year under the programme.

The scholarship is merit-based and covers undegraduate studies at institutes of higher learning in Malaysia and abroad, he said at the launch of the programme here today.

Under the programme, the successful applicants will be offered the scholarships based on the location of their university of choice.

For those who are applying for scholarships to pursue undergraduate degrees at Malaysian institutes of higher learning, the amount awarded per person will be RM10,000 per year while for studies in non-Malaysian universities, the award will be up to RM150,000 per year.

Das said the Maxis Scholarship for Excellence Undergraduate programme is an extension of the prestigious Maxis Scholarship for Excellence Postgraduates programme, which was launched in 2005 to support high-achieving Malaysian graduates wishing to pursue their postgraduate studies and research at top universities abroad.

He said the programme has awarded full-ride scholarships to 12 bright young Malaysians including four recipients for this year’s intake.


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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

CARAM Asia internship programme opened for applicants

Thanks to my loyal blog reader for sharing this.
 

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CARAM Asia's internship programme aims to develop a human rights perspective and deepen the understanding of interns on the issues of migration and health.

More specifically, this will afford them the opportunity to acquire practical experience of work in NGOs and civil society while learning different advocacy, campaigning, researching and networking skills.

We welcome highly motivated candidates with keen interest to advocate for the migrant communities. This internship can also be used for academic accreditation purposes but interns will have to apply individually with their university to obtain accreditation for their work while CARAM Asia can assist in acknowledging the intern's work with us.

CARAM Asia will provide allowance to account for interns's living costs.

Interested candidates should contact our Regional Coordinator, Cynthia Gabriel: cynthia@caramasia.org

Monday, September 22, 2008

Forum where Barack Obama and McCain went on at Columbia

Saw this in The Star .

This was held at Columbia University, where pink pau is studying!

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First World or Free World, it is still bread and butter issues that dictate the phenomenal race to Washington. Pollsters are holding out for the candidate who finds his voice for the people in these days of economic troubles, especially after the stunning fall of Lehman Brothers.

DUSK was settling in but the mood at Columbia University was bright as the campus awaited for America’s two most watched men.

The Ivy League school was playing host to a forum for the ServiceNation Summit on Sept 11; Barack Obama and John McCain would discuss volunteerism and national service.

A large screen was erected near Low Library. The crowd of students began to swell long before the simulcast of the forum began.

One female undergraduate posed with a life-size cut-out of the Democratic contender. Others clapped whenever Obama’s name was mentioned by a speaker.

The mood was infectious; there was hardly a poker-face in sight.

“It’s predominantly for Obama,” Tara Machen, a final year Arts undergraduate, said of the campus population.

But, she assured, there had been no fights between Obama and McCain supporters among the students. “We enjoyed the diversity of views,” she maintained.

Youthful enthusiasm aside, the mood of the country remains negative.

Neil Newhouse, a co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies, said their latest survey found that at least 67% of Americans felt that their great nation was on the wrong track and George W. Bush was getting the thumbs down as President.

As a pollster, Newhouse has done research in countries such as Bulgaria, Jamaica and Venezuela “but I have not had numbers that are as negative as what we are seeing currently.”

The economy is the priority of the American electorate now, he said, instead of Iraq which was once the burning issue at hand.

In a sense, the Democrat Party has an edge over its rivals.

“The biggest doubt about McCain is that he will continue Bush’s policies,” said Stan Greenberg, CEO of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, who has served as pollster for leaders like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Tony Blair and Nelson Mandela.

Look to the 2006 US midterm elections, he said, as a backdrop. “It was like an earthquake then when the Republicans lost control of the House Representatives and the Senate.”

Prior to Monday’s collapse of Lehman Brothers, Greenberg said Obama had a mere three point advantage over McCain.

“Obama has energised the young people but I believe that economic issues are not his passion,” he said.

Hillary Clinton, for comparison’s sake, had eyed more the blue-collar workers.

Both Newhouse and Greenberg were at a discussion on “Post-Convention, Pre-Debates: A Look at the Race to the White House in Key Battleground States” organised by the Washington Foreign Press Centre on Tuesday.

The Republican camp, according to Newhouse, had been hit by “Palin mania”.

“I can’t tell you how excited they are. She is getting numbers that comes to almost unanimous in terms of polling,” he said.

Sarah Palin, McCain’s running mate, has the highest positive rating for a vice-president contender since Al Gore in 1992. But the question remains: Will the numbers stay strong for her?

“So, the vice-presidential debate on Oct 2 between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin will be a lot of fun,” he remarked.

The last couple of weeks revealed “a clear sense that McCain has the wind at his back,” he said.

Polls conducted during the first week of the month showed that he was gaining ground more than Obama.

But neither Obama nor McCain was particularly strong on the economy.

“The first one who finds a voice on this (the fall of Lehman) in the next 72 hours will have an advantage,” Newhouse said.

In a way, both candidates “even each other out,” he added. According to him, Obama has his biggest edge €“ vote for change €“ but the Democrat’s main weakness, his inexperience, is McCain’s biggest strength.

Still, Newhouse refused to read the tea leaves for the outcome of the battle for America’s highest office.

“It is still up for grabs. This is an extraordinary election with more twists and turns to come. Issues have zig-zagged. This is not a campaign that goes on a straight and narrow path,” he said, “so I don’t even dare to predict it.”




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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Free Sepang A1 GP Grandstand Ticket

Do you want to watch A1 Grand Prix at Sepang on 21st Nov to 23rd Nov for free? If yes, do go to here to redeem it.

There will be steps there to register as an A1 Fan Club members and after that, if you click on "JobStreet Entrepreneur Week" by 30th September 2008, you'll be able to get up to 6 A1 Grand Stand Ticket.

Do go there and submit Malaysia team!

Enjoy!

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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Unigo.com - New US Universities Sites

Thanks to Mark Lee, an alumnus of MIT for sharing with me this link on Unigo.com . This is a large US Universities peer sharing site.

NY Times has an article on it here .

Do check it out! I tried to register just now, but somehow faced problem. Maybe due to my connection or too many people out there trying to go in.
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Broke young college graduates with ideas for awesome new Web sites are about as thick on the ground as pigeons in New York City, but Jordan Goldman has a talent for getting noticed. Born and raised in Staten Island, he graduated from Wesleyan in 2004, spent two post-grad years in England and, upon his return to his native city, lived in 16 different sublets in the next two years. His own parents referred to him as the Wandering Jew. “I was ordering Chinese lunch specials and dividing them into three,” he remembered recently, “and that was my food for days. My mom thought I was nuts. She kept saying, ‘Get a job,’ and I’d say, ‘No, Ma, I have this idea.’ ”

With no money, no contacts and no business education whatsoever, Goldman began where any 21st-century self-starter would: “I Google-searched ‘business plan,’ and I found one and just plugged my own words into it. Then it wound up that Wesleyan has an alumni database, and so I looked for people who worked in finance and who graduated 10 or more years before I did. I e-mailed about 500 people, and I just said: ‘Look, I have this idea. What do I do now? What comes next?’ It was a fairly untraditional fund-raising process.”

Actually, with the exception of the bit about Google, it was as traditional as can be, but given that he was 23, Goldman can be excused for thinking that he discovered the Old Boy Network. About 50 Wesleyan alums answered his e-mail messages, and one of those replies — from Frank Sica, a former president of Soros Private Funds Management — was the stuff of drama.

“He said, ‘I live in Bronxville,’ ” Goldman recounted. “ ‘At 7:30 I order my eggs at this diner. I’m done by 8. Come up to the diner and tell me about your idea, and I’ll give you until I’m done with my eggs.’ ” Armed with only his idea and the ability to talk a blue streak about it, Goldman set his alarm and took a train to that diner. No one who has ever met Goldman would have any trouble guessing that by the time Sica was finished with his eggs that day, he was on his way to becoming the young man’s lead investor.

Now Goldman goes to work every day on Park Avenue, in an office with an interior window through which he can keep tabs on his 25 employees, nearly all of them even younger than he. This month his Web site, called Unigo.com — a free, gigantic, student-generated guide to North American colleges for prospective applicants and their families — went live for the benefit of tens of thousands of trepidatious high-school students as they try to figure out where and how to go to college. Not coincidentally, it also aims to siphon away a few million dollars from the slow-adapting publishers of those elephantine college guidebooks that have been a staple of the high-school experience for decades. A lot of the classic narratives about a young man’s coming of age may seem fatally old-fashioned in the new century, but apparently, Horatio Alger still lives.

One measure of an idea’s greatness is how obvious it seems in retrospect, and Unigo’s central idea — that high-school and college students would much rather learn from one another than from a book — is so self-evident that your first reaction is surprise that no one has acted on it before. As status anxiety has helped to drive college applications to record levels, the college-guidebook industry has expanded along with it, stoking those anxieties in order to sell you a way to assuage them, most conspicuously through their merciless numerical ranking of the colleges by every metric they can plausibly invent (“Most Millionaire Graduates,” “Top 10 Schools You’ve Never Heard Of”). But over the years, the handful of major players in the guidebook business — a group that includes The Princeton Review, Fiske, Peterson’s and especially the rankings-granddaddy, U.S. News & World Report — have enlarged their operations without really adapting them to the habits of a generation whose first, and often only, source for information is the Internet. The guidebook publishers all have decent Web sites, but since the ultimate purpose of those Web sites is to sell the books, they have little choice but to be parsimonious about how much information they give out for free.

On Unigo, the information is all free — “free,” of course, understood as a synonym for “accompanied by advertisements” — and with the exception of brief editorial overviews of each of the 267 colleges featured at start-up, all of it is voluntarily provided by current students at those colleges. “For so long, the colleges have been able to have this stranglehold on the P.R. image of their school,” Goldman said recently in his office, decorated boy-workaholic-style with nothing but an open box of Frosted Flakes and a toy robotic dinosaur. “It’s just harder to look at them as the main source of information. If you’re a college student, you are as much of an expert on being a student at that college as anyone.”

The beauty part is that Unigo has not only declined to enlist the colleges’ help with this “national grass-roots movement,” as Goldman likes to refer to it, but the company has also kept it a secret from them. Unigo started soliciting input directly from students (under a kind of Internet alias, “bystudents.com”) almost a year ago, and to date it has received more than 30,000 individual bits of content — primarily reviews in the form of responses to an essay-based questionnaire, but also photos, videos, uploaded writing samples, etc. — all before publicly unveiling the site or even the real name. So how many of these contributions will ultimately be chosen for inclusion on the site?

Goldman looked surprised by the question. “All of them,” he said.

And that is the plane on which it is simply impossible for the traditional guidebooks to compete. Even the most student-oriented book — “The Insider’s Guide to the Colleges” published annually by the staff of The Yale Daily News, to take one example — is forced by space considerations into a shorthand style reminiscent of a Zagat’s restaurant review: student quotes are cherry-picked on the basis of how representative they are of respondents’ opinions as a whole. Unigo, though, can host so much more material than even the fattest book that there is no burden on anyone’s opinion to be in any way representative of anything. On the contrary, it is free to be as idiosyncratic and intemperate as college life itself. (Unigo’s editorial overviews make use of those Zagat’s style quotelets as well, but each quote will function as a hyperlink to the full-length review and from there to the reviewer’s personal profile.)

“There’s a nuance to colleges,” said a Unigo editor, Nikki Martinez, who graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara two years ago. “One of the colleges I’m responsible for is U.S.C. Forty thousand kids. Their reputation is pretty much for football. So my intern there submits a video about this little taco truck they have in the parking lot. I have a lot of friends who went to U.S.C., and the second I mention it they’re all like: ‘Oh, my God, the taco truck! I’m so glad you got the taco truck!’ ”

The textual content on the site takes many forms, but it all essentially adopts the tone and language and casual, critical spirit of an online product review. Even the most boosterish appraisals are often wonderfully unguarded. It is diverting to imagine the reactions of admissions officers nationwide as they read testimonials like this one from an undergraduate at Louisiana State University: “We can drink any college under the table and do it with some class and hospitality.” Or this, from a current Cornell student: “I tend not to blame the suicides on the school. As for blaming suicides on the weather: if you’re that cold, then buy a jacket, for God’s sake. It’s much less messy, and you don’t have to write a note first.”

It is possible to have your contribution rejected, at least in theory. But the extent to which Unigo abides by this anything-goes principle is bracing. A student at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, for instance, writes approvingly in his review that it is still “a white school.” The Unigo staff members shrug it off. “If that’s the kind of people that are going there,” Martinez said, “people need to know that.”

Said Adam Freelander, a Unigo managing editor: “Even the best guidebooks kind of make it seem like every college in the country is an awesome place to be, no matter who you are. And that’s not true.”

Every student who joins Unigo has a user profile, and while that profile might not feature his or her real name, the idea is that by garnering a few pieces of personal information — your major, your hometown, your race, sex and political leanings — a database is created that makes it possible for newcomers to search the site by all kinds of hyperspecific criteria. You can see how many other people from your own high school are looking at a particular college. You can contact the author of a review with follow-up questions. “You can say, ‘I only want to see reviews of Harvard by African-American students,’ and have a choice of 20,” Goldman projected, “or by English majors, and have a choice of 50. So you can not only see a more comprehensive version of the school than you can anywhere else, but you can also see the school through the eyes of someone who’s just like you.”

The idea of letting students write, or at least contribute to, college guides is not brand new; in fact, the one significant modernization in the guidebook business in the last decade or so is the vogue for books that feature students’ contributions alongside those of objective “experts.” It is a vogue for which Goldman, despite his tender years, can already claim a fair amount of credit. He is the co-editor of “The Students’ Guide to Colleges,” a project he began freshman year in his dorm room at Wesleyan using nothing more than his own ingratiating manner and boundless energy to hire unpaid interns on 100 college campuses nationwide. They helped him to attract their fellow students’ attention to the long-form, essay-based survey Goldman then posted online, offering only the promise that the three best responses to these surveys would be chosen to represent the authors’ schools in print. By the time he graduated, the Penguin edition of “The Students’ Guide” was selling solidly, but the book’s success, as well as its limitations, got Goldman thinking about what might be wrought on a grander scale.

“My whole family chipped in for me to go to college,” he said. “They were saving from when I was 2 or 3 years old. That the best resource for a four-year, $200,000 decision are these books — with no photos, no videos, no interactivity, only three to five pages per school on average, fully updated usually once every several years — just doesn’t make the grade. This is the most important decision people that age have ever made, and the information is just not there.”

In early August, with the site code complete and the tens of thousands of individual pieces of content laboriously loaded onto it, a loosely organized parade of small focus groups, recruited via Craigslist, began to drop by the Unigo office. A pair of high-school juniors from Rye Country Day School in Westchester County were paid $25 each to spend an hour or so navigating the site, pronounced it awesome, something they would immediately tell their friends about, leaving Goldman and the others beaming in the conference room afterward.

Each Unigo editor has a list of 10 colleges (including, always, his or her own alma mater) to oversee; their most important task may be finding an unpaid intern on each campus willing to act as a liaison and an occasional reality-checker for Unigo’s efforts. The real masterstroke, though, was the purchase of a hundred Flip video cameras, which were delivered to the on-campus interns themselves with a minimum of instructions. The results are not only vivid in a way no guidebook can match but also, in the way of the generation that produced them, often guilelessly intimate.

A white student looks back on her decision to attend the historically black Howard University. Two girls at Notre Dame, one an official campus tour guide, visit several spots around campus: at each one, the tour guide gives you the approved spiel, and then her friend tells you what the spiel leaves out. At Wesleyan, the camera goes around a dining hall, and an offscreen student asks the different, socially stratified tables — a table full of jocks, a table full of hipsters — to talk about student stereotypes. A Princeton student sitting on a dorm-room couch, his face almost entirely obscured by a hoodie, talks about the difference between racial and socioeconomic diversity and why Princeton may excel at the first but fails at the second.

“In the ‘Fiske Guide,’ ” said Max Baumgarten, a Unigo editor, “it’ll say ‘the University of Wisconsin sits on these lakes,’ right, and you’re a high-school senior, and you’re like: What do I care that the school is on a few lakes? That means nothing to me. You look at a video, though, and see students hanging out in these beautiful surroundings, and that really changes the game.”

It changes the game from an economic standpoint too: it costs a lot of money to travel far away from home to check out schools, and Unigo offers an unfiltered, detailed, often somewhat eccentric view of campuses all over the country. A 45-second video in which an unseen student pans around the courtyard at Sarah Lawrence on a sunny day and simply describes what she sees (including a student-run barbecue pit called PETA, which stands for “People Eating Tasty Animals”) is so evocative that it makes the one-page U.S. News summary — or the descriptions in Sarah Lawrence’s own admissions catalog, for that matter — read like junk mail.

Unigo’s staff members, as befits their age, do not lack for a sense of the significance of what they are about to unleash on the world. “The colleges are going to have to change what they’re doing,” Martinez said. “The pictures of the kids on the lawn won’t do anymore.”

If so, the colleges remain happily in the dark for now. “I’ve got to be honest with you,” Christopher Gruber, a vice president who oversees admissions at Davidson College, told me. “I’m not spending a ton of time navigating those student-driven sites. It’s too much to manage. My sense is that the traditional big players, like Princeton Review, are the major sources for online information too, in part because those are the names that parents still recognize. Those are the names that are going to have greater panache, and so those are probably the ones that will be turned to. The ones that we supply information to are the ones that we spend the most time on, filling out surveys for them to make sure that that information is accurate.”

In early September, after Unigo offered Davidson and the other 266 colleges a two-week preview of the site — “because we don’t want them to feel ambushed,” Goldman explained — Gruber confirmed that the letter from Goldman was sitting on his desk but said he hadn’t yet found the time to visit the site itself. If he does, he will see reviews, photos and videos by roughly 230 current Davidson students (one-eighth of its entire student body) already posted there.

“I don’t think they know the numbers,” Baumgarten said. “That’s the distinction. The whole package is something they should be a bit scared of, but they’re not. They don’t really understand the immensity of it.”

Unigo’s 25 editors would be the first to acknowledge that their contribution to the site pales in comparison to that of their legion of student contributors. It’s hard to find fault with Goldman’s assertion that this is not just another Web site but a grass-roots phenomenon. But a phenomenon of what nature? If consumer advocacy seems like a strange modern lens to train on what used to be the great desideratum of millions of American families — getting accepted into, and graduating from, a good college, or indeed any college at all — it certainly speaks to the great leveling that the Internet has wrought in terms of consumption. “If you look at it,” Goldman said, “you can review anything online. You can review the most trivial things, but you can’t review your college. There’s no platform for this incredibly important decision that costs so much money.”

College, in other words, is at a certain point in your life the ultimate product, and the first truth with which its current and prospective students are concerned is truth in advertising. Schools are very much in the business of selling themselves — about 150 colleges nationwide reject more students than they accept, and even those compete hard for the applicants they consider the biggest gets — to which Unigo’s reply seems to be: Look, if you won’t sell the experience to us properly, then don’t even bother. We’ll just sell it to one another.

Empowerment,” “revolution,” “grass-roots movement” — these are phrases Goldman and his employees toss around a fair bit. They’re not wrong, exactly, but there is something dispiriting about seeing that vocabulary applied here, as if the greatest empowerment to which young people can aspire is the empowerment of the focus group — the opportunity to offer marketers “reviews” that help determine how those who come after them will be marketed to. Several Unigo employees repeated to me a sort of party line that ran like this: Who’s a better judge of a college than its students? The potential counterarguments seem less important than the fact that they clearly consider the question a rhetorical one. Thus they feel no need to critique, for instance, their own tabulation that one of the most commonly voiced student complaints about today’s college experience, nationwide, is the lack of sufficient on-campus parking.

It all might seem less suggestive if it weren’t for the fact that this whole “grass-roots movement” seems poised to make a lot of money — most of which seems destined to find its way to the usual suspects, none of whom are part of a grass-roots anything.

Asked whether he ever thinks twice about taking a position in a company with someone as young as Goldman at the helm, Sica — the investor who listened to Goldman while eating his eggs and who now leads Unigo’s board — was surprisingly candid. “I’m still not off the kick of saying we need a real C.E.O.,” he said. “We haven’t needed one to date. We have a very active board. Jordan has listened and has acted appropriately, so I haven’t pushed the point. But it’s not clear to me what kind of person we want as C.E.O. At this point, we’re still a development-stage company: we haven’t sold a thing; we don’t have a dollar of revenue. Once we see where we’re going, I think we’ll revisit that issue, and Jordan may end up as the C.E.O. then, or he may not.”

Goldman has always made the case that his youth is in many ways his chief qualification. “When I brought this up from scratch, some people said, ‘Look, you’re just a kid — are you really the right person to do this?’ And we tried to make the case that we’re the perfect people to do it, because we’re the only ones who know what college today is really like and who know how to reach other students in a way that someone 20 years out isn’t going to.” As for the future: “Right now I’m still the largest shareholder, but I feel like it’s kind of not about those things. If anything, I gave away a fair amount, under the idea that it was more important to get this company off the ground than to be able to say it was mine. Anyway, I don’t have any sort of five-year plan. It’s hopefully about a lot more than just me.” He smiled. “After I graduated, when I told my mom that instead of getting a job I was going to spend a year trying to finance a business plan, she thought I was totally nuts. She still thinks I’m nuts. But at least I’m nuts with a Web site.”

Jonathan Dee is a novelist and a contributing writer for the magazine.

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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Friday, September 19, 2008

JobStreet.com - Forbes Asia "Best Under 1 Billion" List

There are 24,155 public listed companies in Asia Pacific region, which has sales of below USD1 Billion.

Of these 24,155 companies, a total of 200 companies were selected by Forbes, as under Forbes Asia 4th Annual "Best Under 1 Billion" list.

Malaysia ranked number 7, in terms of ranking based on number of companies qualified under the list. China is first with 88 companies, followed by Japan 23 companies, India 22 companies and Singapore 14 companies. Malaysia has 13 companies falling under the list.

One of the Malaysian companies, who made it last year, as well as this year is ----- JobStreet.com .

It is amazing to see my company being selected among these top 1% of companies. That is definitely testament to JobStreet.com's ability to continue perform and grow.

For full article, do go to NST .

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SINGAPORE, THURS:

Thirteen Malaysian companies made the Forbes Asias fourth annual ’Best Under A Billion’ list, according to Forbes, the US-based publisher of the leading Asian business magazine.



The companies are CB Industrial Product, Coastal Contracts, Efficient E-Solutions, ETI Tech, Grand-Flo Solution, Hai-O Enterprise, I-Power, JobStreet, Notion Vtec, Pintaras Jaya, Plant Offshore, Sarawak Oil Palms and Success Transformer.

Malaysia was also ranked seventh in terms of the number of companies represented on this years list, Forbes said in a statement today.

The list features the best 200 companies from among 24,155 listed firms in the Asia-Pacific region.

Forbes said those with less than US$1 billion in sales were vetted for consistent growth of both sales and profits over three years.

The Malaysian companies on the Forbes list dealt in a wide range of products and services, from rechargeable batteries, industrial tools, marine vessels, online recruitment, information technology solutions and multi-level marketing to palm oil and construction services for the oil and gas industry.

The net income of the companies ranged between US$2 million and US$33 million with a market value of between US$15 million and US$341 million.

They also recorded sales of between US$17 million and US$132 million, Forbes said.

Forbes explained that more than a quarter of last years companies made the list again with consumer technology, commercial real estate, clean energy producers and business services sectors leading the way.

All the companies on this years list increased sales and profits despite major indexes in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Australia falling by more than 20 percent over the past year.

The greater China region outperformed the rest of the Asia Pacific with the most number of firms, with 88 on the list, followed by Japan (23), India (22) and Singapore (14).

The full list will appear in the Sept 29 issue of Forbes Asia magazine. It will be available in newsstands this week.



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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!

Shuang Fu Charity Event on 21st Sept 2008

If anyone is free, do check this event out.

It is a great charity event by Shuang Fu on 21st September 2008 (Sunday) 10am to 3pm.
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双福爱心义卖会--9月21日

以“圆聚欢喜心”为主题的双福7周年爱心义卖会的脚步已近!感谢许许多多关爱双福的朋友,用爱心化为行动,陪伴我们走过这七年里甘苦的岁月。因为您,双福从无到有,从职能培训,到积极开拓外展服务:居家就业以及居家手工授课,现在更把服务延伸到柔佛分会的居家探访、教学和个案就铺,许多被遗忘在一角的残障朋友因此而蒙福,他们慢慢地走出黑暗,接受职训,并开始拥有自信与尊严。

2. “圆聚欢喜心”爱心义卖会的宗旨是让大众的爱心与双福感恩的心欢喜团聚。同时,也是一个平台,让拥有煮食天份或糕点大师、游戏王、才艺天王等等大展身手,我们也荣幸邀请到“共享空间”专业舞蹈团作为我们的表演嘉宾,并为当天的活动精心策划一番。配合中秋佳节,我们特别会在现场进行一系列的节目,让公众能够饮水思源,纪念中秋的意义。我们希望藉着这次的活动汇聚社会大众的爱与支持,为残障朋友常年就业职能培训基金而筹募,所以设下RM 200,000.00为这次的筹募目标。

3. 双福7周年“圆聚欢喜心”爱心义卖会的时间及地点如下:

日期 :9月21日(星期日)

时间 :10am-3pm

地点 :吉隆坡尊孔独中

4. 此外当天我们也非常荣幸的邀请到士布爹区国会议员YB郭素沁硕士在上午11时主持开幕仪式及见证颁发感谢状给所有赞助人。其他出席的爱心伙伴则有乌鲁冷岳兴安会馆妇女组和雪兰莪福建会馆妇女组、安邦狮子会、共享空间舞蹈团、尊孔独中、宝岛妇女联谊会、北区区部八打灵民政党及“新闻报报看”5位主播也将到场为我们打气。

5. 我们诚心邀请您带着一家大小参与我们的爱心义卖会。许多爱心的捐献者和商家们已为您预备琳琅满目的物品、食物以及多姿多彩的游戏和节目。当天将摆设的100个摊位及节目包括:台湾小吃及本地各籍贯美味小吃、素食食物、雪糕、各种健康饮料、糕点、包子、面包、手工艺品、二手货品、舞台表演、轮椅舞蹈、盲人按摩、青光眼检验;猜灯谜比赛、趣味游戏、体验游戏(可赢取丰富的奖品)等等。这个老少咸宜的义卖会肯定让大家乐而忘返,我们等着您来哦!

任何疑问,烦请联络公关干事廖春莲小姐012-7340016。

Grace Liu Choon Lian
Executive Public Relation
012-7340016

Persatuan Kristian Shuang Fu
No.125, Jalan Hujan Emas,
Taman Oversea Union,
58200 Kuala Lumpur.
(O)03-79831842/1843 (F)03-79831844
www.shuangfu.org

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Seek Purchased 30% stake in Brasil Online Holdings

Another development for substantial investor of JobStreet.com -- Seek .

This is quoted from Sydney Morning Herald .

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THE online job ad publisher Seek has bought 30 per cent of Brasil Online Holdings, owner of two Brazilian employment websites, Catho Online and Manager Online.

Seek will invest $US67 million ($85 million) in the company, funded from a $US200 million syndicated loan. Seek also will take a seat on Brasil's board.

Seek's chief executive, Andrew Bassat, said the business had been looking for opportunities to expand internationally, following an investment in China.

On Wednesday it revealed it had invested in the South-East Asian job website JobStreet Corporation Berhad for 55 million ringgit ($19 million).

"This means that our international investments are now a substantial part of our business and hopefully a key driver of growth," Mr Bassat said yesterday.

Seek's director of corporate strategy, Jason Lenga, said job seekers in Brazil paid to use employment websites.

"Employer-paid advertising [is] in the early stages of development and will provide substantial upside in the longer term," he said.

Consolidated Press Holdings will invest alongside Seek and hold 5 per cent of the company.




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SEEK owns 10% stake in JobStreet Corp Bhd

JobStreet Corporation Berhad has a new investor in Seek - the main job board in Australia and New Zealand.

Seek has a 25% stake in Zhaopin in China too!

Quoting from The Edge the full article below

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KUALA LUMPUR: SEEK International Investments Pty Ltd, which is based in Melbourne, has emerged as a substantial shareholder in JobStreet Corp Bhd after acquiring 31 million shares or 9.97% of the Malaysian recruitment firm this month.

Filings to Bursa Malaysia yesterday showed that SEEK International had purchased the shares in four tranches over four days. A total of 15 million and 1.8 million shares were acquired on Sept 5 and 10 respectively. Another 8.5 million and 5.7 million shares were purchased on Sept 11 and 16 respectively.

On Monday, JobStreet announced that US-based Armor Capital Partners, LP had ceased to be a major stakeholder in the recruitment specialist from Sept 11. This happened after the foreign investor disposed of 4.69 million shares in JobStreet.


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China Synergy Programme Reunion (CSP Reunion)

Time flies. It has been 50 months, since I left Hong Kong for China Synergy Programme 5 (CSP5). It is definitely memorable, thinking back of the 18 days I spent in Hong Kong/China during CSP. It is a livelong memory. The time spent together is something that is really unforgetable.

The friendship we have made. The traveling together, the laughter/cheer etc. Going through all the visits.

We only meet in HK and China due to us participating in CSP, and it is unique that all of us are there together, singing, taking the same plane/bus/train/boat.

It is one of the best parts of our life, if not the best.

And while we might have chance to meet a few people here and there around the world, nothing beats meeting with large number of us in CSP10 Reunion. This is definitely a great milestone, for us, since we have separated from each other for 5 years.

To all, do remember to vote that you want to go and make a commitment to go. It would be a great event.

Lets keep in touch!
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Dear CSP alumni,


"Can we just ponder, how lucky we are, to have this day, to sing together……"

It has been some time since we last met! I hope all is well. Can you still recall the lyrics from the CSP song? Do you still remember the time you spent with your fellow delegates on the CSP journey in China to learn more about China and Chinese culture? It may have been a while since you last visited China, but I can assure you it has undergone enormous changes again in the past years. With 30 years of open door policy and new innovations, ideas and changes brought by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, China continues to reach new levels of advancement and prosperity. The year of 2009 will be a remarkable year as it marks a new era in China.

Not only is it the beginning of a new era in China, it is also the 10th anniversary of the China Synergy Programme For Outstanding Youths. The CSP planning committee therefore hopes to make the year of 2009 more remarkable for you.

Due to requests from numerous CSP alumni, we are currently considering the possibility for a CSP10 Grand Reunion. Contents may include a pre-reunion trip in China followed by a series of activities in Beijing, including forums, seminars and visits, and of course a reunion party.

It would indeed be my delight to meet you all again but the reunion is feasible only if we have encouraging feedback and support from our alumni around the world. Therefore we would like to invite you all to give us a hand by completing the online survey.

(http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=p25Pz0ph570btxj90vBLXCA)

For any enquiry or suggestion, please feel free to write to alumni@chinasynergy.org.hk.


Yours sincerely,

Ms. Leung Kwok Ching

The Founder and Chairman of Planning Committee,

China Synergy Programme for Outstanding Youth Planning Committee

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Penang Free Statewide Wifi

Read this news in The Star .

If this could be implemented successfully in my home state - Penang, this would be a great service to the public and visitors! It is state-wide Wifi or Wimax.

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GEORGE TOWN: Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has launched “Penang Free WiFi” - the first step in making Penang the country’s first WiFi state.

The initiative, which is the first component of the state’s Wireless@Penang project, is aimed at giving Penangites free wireless broadband services.

“Today, Penang takes a bold step to make the entire state connected through wireless broadband and it’s a journey we want to complete within the next 18 to 24 months.

“This effort is 100% private sector driven with nearly no or minimal cost put in by the state government. However, there are no rights to exclusivity and all qualified and recognised industry players are welcome to interest of promoting competition,” Lim said at the launch in Komtar on Thursday.

He said the project was different from the Federal Government-initiated High Speed Broadband (HSBB) project costing RM11.3bil.

Lim said a preview of WiMAX@Penang, the state’s next step in providing for serious mobile Internet users who require faster speed, was scheduled for next week.

The Penang Free WiFi project is currently headed by content manager REDtone Telecommunications Sdn Bhd and service enabler Hotgate Technology (M) Sdn Bhd which will set up 750 wireless access points over the next one year.

He said the free WiFi service was already available on Komtar’s concourse level and 28th floor which houses the Chief Minister’s office.

“The WiFi service will be deployed on a ‘ripples strategy’ with simultaneous initial roll-outs in several core market centres on the island and mainland before they spread to cover the entire state,” Lim said.

REDtone group managing director Wei Chuan Beng said they would begin setting up access points in Queensbay Mall and the service should be available within the next four weeks.

“This will be followed by the areas located in Macalister Road, Burma Road, Gurney Plaza and Gurney Drive, Bukit Jambul Complex, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Butterworth and then Tanjung Bungah.

“The connection speed offered is at an average of 10 Mbps, depending on the specification of the notebooks, the speed can vary,” Wei said.

He said the REDtone-Hotgate consortium planned to invest at least RM10mil in the project but expected it to be self-funded from advertisements in the near future.






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Wednesday, September 17, 2008

1Malaysia.com.my

Our Deputy Prime Minister, YB Datuk Seri Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak, has launched this website of 1Malaysia.com.my to reach out to all Malaysians.

It is interesting and hearthening to see our Deputy Prime Minister shares his view in English, and also more importantly a common message to all Malaysians of all races. This is definitely a crucial step forward for us, as Malaysians, where we should all unite and leverage on our strength as a multi-racial nation, to grow and compete with the global competition.

We shouldn't be squabbling among ourselves, and not be swayed by various extremists' statements. As a Malaysian, we should engage one another, and also learn from one another, understand one another, and hopefully, we would have a better future.

While this step by YB Datuk Seri Najib may still only be scratching the surface, it is hearthening to hear from our leader, of the futuristic perspective they have, and also more importantly, speaking of a common language to all Malaysians.

It is my hope that all of you would visit 1Malaysia.com.my and listen to YB Datuk Seri Najib's address. It is great that he spoke with passion and empathy, without reading through a guided speech.

One complaint though that I have about this site is that the video file is quite large and it took a long time to load. Hopefully they would have the full transcript of it for us to read, instead of view (especially those of us with a slower bandwidth.

Below are some of the key messages that I have picked up from it.

- This is a free, open dialogue for us all Malaysians as One Malaysia, and for us to explore our many diverse perspectives of our nation.

- Diversity of our community is our strength and his role as the elected is to reflect on the aspirations of those voting public.

- As we know, Malaysia is a coalition of multi races, and unity of all community is the most vital ingredient that we need to thrive as one Malaysia, for the United Nations of Malaysia.

- Since independence, we have been represented by leaders of individual of single-raced party, who come togheter to rule under BN formula. YB Datuk Seri Najib still believes that it is the right formula and we should strengthen the trust of all Malaysians.

- We should also tap into the 1st Principle of Rukun Negara - Believe in God, where we would live the spirit of tolerance and empathy. We should teach our children to respect other races, starting from home to other places like school, religious places, community halls etc. We should remain true to our founding principle.

- He acceded that the government did not live up to the commitment made, as reflected in the last election, but he is giving his full commitment to llive to change, and this is a time of renewal. Malaysians are getting more engaged than before.

- We should be mindful of our delivate balance, and nurture unity and respect.

- Government has helped to strengthen the Malays over the years and this enlarged pie has benefitted everyone. And now is the time for government policy to help all disadvantaged citizen, where all community would be helped and provide everyone with a prosperous and secure nation to face the real challenges.

- He talked about we need to revive the confidence in police force, judiciary, local authority and institutionalize transparency and eradicate corruption.

- Diversity is our source of economic advantage. We should prepare our children to compete globally and all Malaysian children to have a chance to have much better quality of life.

- All these would require the effort by all of us - Malaysians. It is the inclusive of all Malaysians, to join in discussion, and he would hope to get input and response from the insight of the onlien community and he hope to gain that perspective. This is a vital dialogue to define Malaysia's identity and purpose.

- We should include all our extended family in our discourse and work together to define our Malaysia and our role to play in the future.

- All Malaysians share a desire for a better tomorrow, and we hope to strengthen our friendship/understanding among all communities in Malaysia.

- It is our hope that Each of us as a unique Malaysian would come together as One Malaysia.


My personal thought after hearing YB Datuk Seri Najib speaking is that he has definitely brought renewed hope for a better Malaysia. I definitely wish that all Malaysian leaders would be having this positive thoughts of leveraging on our genuine understanding of all Malaysians for a one united Malaysia.

Lets play our role, irrespective of which political divide we are, to make Malaysia a better place, in whichever aspect that we care and we can play a role to strengthen.

This is our nation. If we do not work together to strengthen it, no one will. Lets join hand together to develop our Malaysia.

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Online Resources to Learn English

The importance of English is not to be undermined. This is an initiative by UTM to share the resources with Malaysian students of other universities. I couldn't find the URL of this initiative. If any of the blog reader found it, please do share it.

This is quoted from NST

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The Online Resources for Learning in English (MyLinE), initiated by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) two years ago, will be open for use to all students in public institutions of higher learning (IPTAs), beginning today.

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the programme highlighted the benefits of collaboration among universities, besides representing the right response to the use of technology for teaching and learning.

“We would like to see the best practices in IPTAs. We will expand programmes or technologies from any university to be shared by other universities to prevent them from developing a new programme which has been initiated by others,” he said after launching the MyLinE portal at UTM city campus here today.

MyLinE, which was first introduced to semester 1 UTM students in 2006/2007, is a self-access learning resource to enhance English language communication skills among students at tertiary level.

The current main learning resources of this portal are grouped under topics such as English for Academic Purposes, English for General Communication and Rest and Relax with English.

Mohamed Khaled said the portal generated further interest among the students and the hits soared to 30,950, as of 8am today.

“We will monitor the usage of MyLinE by other IPTA’s and hope they will also share ideas to develop and update the portal contents,” he said, adding that about RM4.5 million was allocated to develop the programme.

Meanwhile, UTM Vice-Chancellor Tan Sri Prof Dr Mohd Zulkifli Mohd Ghazali said the programme would benefit all students as the resources were designed with the academic needs of tertiary-level students.

“It is hoped that such resources will add variety, choices and opportunities for learners to improve and enrich their English language competency,” he said


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MDeC-MIT Technopreneur Initiative

The Multimedia Development Corp (MDeC) under the leadership of Datuk Badlisham Ghazali has definitely been working very hard to enhance the outcome of Multimedia Super Corridor and also the development of technopreneurs. This is yet another initiative by MDeC.

Below is quoted from The Star

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KUALA LUMPUR: Custodian of the MSC Malaysia Initiative, the Multimedia Development Corp (MDeC) plans to ­continue to work with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to equip budding technopreneurs with better ­business skills.

Speaking at a press conference after announcing the sponsors for the upcoming MSC-Malaysia Apicta (Asia Pacific ICT Award), MDeC chief ­executive officer, Datuk Badlisham Ghazali said that MDeC is currently discussing business coaching and mentorship programmes for local technopreneuers with the university.

“We hope to announce the ­finalised programmes at the end of year,” he said.

The programmes will be an ­extension of MDeC’s partnership with MIT. It has already secured a week-long business coaching programme at the institute’s Sloan School of Management as one of the prizes for the recipient of the Prime Minister’s Award at the upcoming MSC-Apicta.

While there, the winner will learn to create, identify and evaluate new venture opportunities, as well as how to enhance and expand their business networks.

Badlisham said the prize ­represents MDeC’s role in nurturing local companies to prepare them for the globalised business world.

“We don’t only want to have many ‘babies,’ we’d like to guide them into ­adulthood too,” Badlisham said, adding that such courses will help local companies be at par with their international counterparts.

Badlisham said MDeC has also worked with local universities to provide business training to students to encourage them to take up ­entrepreneurship.

“The Government is encouraging us to undertake a more nurturing role and create a pool of ­outstanding ­technoprenuers,” he said.

On to the awards

The ninth MSC-Apicta will take place on Oct 18 with the theme of “Stimulating Creativity and Excellence in ICT.”

Badlisham said the theme was picked to reflect the benefits of ­innovative creations based on ICT.

He said this year’s MSC-Apicta has the highest submission rate in the award’s nine-year history.

Badlisham said there are 359 ­nominees this year compared to last year’s 321.

All winners in the 19 categories will represent the country in the regional Apicta ceremony which will be held in Jakarta in November.

Several past MSC-Apicta winners have also showed their support for this year’s event by sponsoring it in cash and kind.

Among the sponsors for this year’s ­ceremony are Jobstreet.com, the Asia Pacific University College of Technology, Microsoft Malaysia and Shell International Bhd.

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DUAL Newsletter


For my blog readers from Singapore.

***************************** 
 
1.  Thurs 18th September, 7:00pm - 9:00pm - DUAL Drinks
2.  Fri 19th September, 7:30pm - Dinner at Original Sin with the Cornell Club's Restaurant Club
3.  Sun 21st September, 3:30pm - Cornell Cinema comes to Singapore and Invites Prospective Freshmen - "Cornell University - The Founding of an American University"
4.  Sat 18th October, 10:00am - 12 noon - DUAL talk on "If I apply to .... University now, will I get in?....."
 
******************************
1.  DUAL Drinks

Do come down and join us for DUAL Drinks every third Thursday of the Month!  It will be a great time to relax, catch up with old friends, and meet new people!

Date:    Thursday, September 18th, 2008
Time:    7:00pm - 9:00pm
Venue:  Brewerkz Restaurant & Microbrewery
            30 Merchant Road #01-05/06 Riverside Point
            Singapore 058282
            Tel: (65) 6438 7438
Cost:    $5 for 2 soft drinks
            $15 for 2 beer

 

2.  Dinner at Original Sin with Cornell Club's Restaurant Club

 

*Guilt-free dining this September*
Cornell Club's Restaurant Club goes to Original Sin this September. A mainstay on our local culinary scene, Original Sin is the first and only Mediterranean vegetarian restaurant in Singapore and a sister restaurant of the Michelangelo's Group of Restaurants. Ever wondered how unique, creative and delicious vegetarian food can be? Let's find out :


On the menu

Mezze plate
A selection of Middle Eastern dips served with falafel patties and pitabread
Koresh (Pumpkin and Carrot infused with Caraway and fennel seed)
Baba Ghanoush (Pureed Eggplant blended with garlic, lemon juice and tahini)
Tzatziki (Yogurt, Cucumber and Mint)
Hummus (Pureed chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon juice)
----------------------------------------------------------
Principessa Salad
Avocado, grilled asparagus, portobello mushroom, tomato, bocconcini, frenchbeans, roasted pumpkin
served with leafy greens and croutons, drizzled in a balsamic vinaigrette
----------------------------------------------------------
Bosco Misto
Spinach, feta and tofu patties coated with crushed almonds and sesame seeds,
served with sauteed button mushrooms, marbled with a plum sauce and topped with Asparagus

or

Moussaka
Oven baked layers of char-grilled eggplant potato and aromatic tomato and
lentils, infused with Middle Eastern spices, topped with bechamel sauce

or

Absolut
Penne with asparagus, button mushroom, spinach, capsicum and onion, flamed
with absolut vodka, sauteed in a pink sauce topped with shaved parmesan
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Walnut cheesecake

or

Chocolate Brownie
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$60 nett

Date: Friday, September 19
Time: 7.30pm
Venue:Original Sin
Blk 43 #01-62 Jalan Merah Saga Holland Village
Chip Bee Gardens
 

Look forward to seeing you there! RSVP Sonia Ong sonia.ong@gmail.com latest Tuesday 16th.  Minimum 10 people for this dinner to proceed
 
3.  Cornell Cinema comes to Singapore and Invites Prospective Freshmen - "Cornell University - The Founding of an American University"
 
Cornell Cinema, that iconic institution of Cornell University which introduced so many students to films from Kurusawa, Truffault, Antonioni, Weir, etc. now comes to Singapore!  Bring your friends for an easy-going Sunday afternoon independent film viewing, in a private screening movie theatre at the beautiful Arts House. http://www.theartshouse.com.sg/about.html

 1 hour film on who Ezra Cornell was, why he founded Cornell and why Cornell University changed higher education in the US, by Emmy-award winning producer Brian Frey.  Do you know your Cornell history?  Find out how progressive Cornell really is!
 
To be followed by fun quiz and Cornell prizes.  Open to Prospective Students who want to meet alumni and learn more about Cornell.
 
Saunter afterwards down the quay and choose among the many delicious restaurants to have dinner or drinks with your friends.
 
Date:  Sunday, 21 September 2008
Time:  3:30pm
Venue:  The Arts House
            1 Parliament Lane
  • Free to Prospective Students and their Parents.  Student discussion with Alumni after movie.

RSVP rstscw@yahoo.com.sg by 17 September 2008.  If student, please specify which school you are currently attending.

 

4.  DUAL talk on "If I apply to .... University now, will I get in?....."

  

Are you wondering how the US college and university application process has changed since you applied?  Today's college application process is more in-depth and competitive than in previous years, due to the increased number of high school graduates and international applicants. DUAL invites you to attend a talk by Ms. Caroline B. Faris, a certified college counselor. She will discuss the many aspects of applying to US colleges and universities, including how to research "good fit" schools, make the most of your child's high school curriculum, prepare for college tours and interviews, brainstorm distinctive college essay topics, and project your student's unique voice throughout the entire application. Come ready to learn about today's application process and have your questions answered by a certified college counselor.  It is never too early to prepare for your child's college and university application process.

 

Date:  Saturday, 18th October 2008

Time:  10:00am - 12 noon

Venue: The American Club

           Colonial Room, 3rd Floor

           10 Claymore Hill

Cost:   $10 per person for DUAL members & family

           $15 per person for non members

 

Light breakfast will be served.

 

Please RSVP by Friday 10th October to Ms. Ng Hau Yee at elohyn@pacific.net.sg

          

 

*************************************
www.dual.org.sg
DUAL is the Distinguished Universities Alumni League, an umbrella organization comprising members from the following 18 alumni clubs - Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Cornell University Hoteliers, Dartmouth College, INSEAD, Johns Hopkins University, London Business School, London School of Economics, MIT, NUS MBA, Oxbridge Society, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania and Yale University