Good Start of 2009

This is gonna be my first posting for the year 2009. Last year was a kind of an up-and-down year for me but alhamdullillah, I managed to accomplish what needed to be done and overcome what need to be forgotten. 2009 started with no major surprises unlike last year when I was suddenly asked to head the unit due to the departure of my boss cum one of my best friends at the office. This year though, the surprise came with the news that the former position that I was heading is going to be filled-up by a friend with a doctoral degree. I hope he can assimilate well into the divisional culture and contribute as much as possible to the betterment of the unit. I was also quite happy to note that BNM inshaallah is going to fill up yet another one of my previous post and I am pretty certain that he is the most suitable engineer for that. With the appointment of the two engineers, I feel more confident to get things in order and move at a faster pace to achieve our targets. I also hope that this year we are going to achieve more that what we had last year....


On Friday & Saturday, I was involved in the second installment of the Electric Power Student Competition 2009 held in UKM Bangi organised by UKM, MNC-CIGRE and IEEE-PES Malaysian Chapter. This year I was involved as one of the committee members and also as the quiz master and panel judge. EPSCOM 09 is a great success indeed and I personally believe that this is due to the hardwork of many people of the organizing committee. We even managed to get the Deputy Minister Higher Education to officiate the opening and the SVP(Operation & Technical) DW Sidek to officiate the closing.
This year we had 14 teams representing eight universities and the winner for this year is UKM 'B' with UM 'A' and UM 'B' the second and the third runner-up. Congrats to all winners especially to the UKN team as this is the second time the have become the champion!




I was also asked to write the closing speech supposedly to be used by DW SVP but as he himself is a great orator, I think he probably used only 1/10 of the prepared material. Nonetheless, I feel that I should post this short closing speech in my blog so that I can remember them later in the future......so here it is



Yang berbahagia Dr. Ir. Abd Halim Abu Bakar the Chairman of EPSCOM 09, Prof. Dr Mohd Marzuki Musafa Dean of Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment UKM, Prof Dr. Sheikh Ghazali Shiekh Abod Deputy Vice-Chancelor UNITEN, committee members of EPSCOM 09, participants, students, guests, ladies and gentlemen assalamualaikum w.b.h and a very good afternoon.

On behalf of the Malaysian National Committee of CIGRE and also the President/CEO of TNB Dato’ Seri Che Khalib Mohd Nor, I would like to extend his sincere apology for not being able to be with us today due to an urgent matter that he has to attend to.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is indeed my great pleasure to be here today to officiate the closing of the Electric Power System Competition EPSOM 09 on behalf of the Chairman of the MNC-CIGRE. As all of us already know, this is the second competition co-organized by MNC-CIGRE and IEES-PES Malaysian Chapter and I was told this time the competition has become bigger and more successful with eight universities participated! In addition, this time around the competition format has been enhanced to also include Project Based Learning (PBL) on top of the Oral and Written quizzes sections. I was also made informed that the PBL section was such as success in a way it taught the participants how to design a reliable distribution system that meets the normal utility and regulatory requirement. It is indeed joyful to see students demonstrate their skill in analyzing power system problems and judging by the results they have produced, the future of power engineering in Malaysia is quite bright indeed!
In the era where Power Engineering has become less popular course chosen by university students worldwide in light of the more seemingly glamorous communication and electronics, the establishment of this type of competition is timely and inevitable to give young students the preview of what power engineering is all about and hopefully this type of event can instill further the desire to learn more about this subject. Power system engineering also has become so important and yet so complex a subject matter nowadays that even for a split second interruption is no longer acceptable to many. Power system engineers worldwide have been working very hard in ensuring a reliable and secured power supply to the point that many times these sacrifices were left unnoticed as the saying goes, electricity can only be appreciated in absentia.
I believe through event like this more and more students, academia and also the aspiring young ones yet to enter universities can get the glimpse of the power engineering world and hopefully this event will make power engineering subject a more glamorous topic to choose in the future.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
I believe the 2-day competition has also created a platform for many students and academicians coming from many different universities to network and build relationship to foster a better research collaboration for the benefit of the country. The more engineers and specialist in power system engineering that we can nurture now, the more secured and reliable our power system will be in the future.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
On behalf the MNC-CIGRE and also IEEE-PES, I would like to thank each individual who has contributed directly or indirectly towards the preparation of this prestigious event. Special thanks to University Kebangsaan Malaysia who has provided the magnificent venue and the necessary infra-structure to host this event. Without their commitments and invaluable support, the creation of this very event would have been impossible. We also thank all participants who dedicated particular effort in ensuring the best for their respective universities. I truly believe that due to all these efforts the outcome of the competition has become a of top-quality event.

We are also indebted to the many individuals and organizations that made this event possible: specifically I would name Tenaga Nasional Berhad, University Kebangssan Malaysia, Advance Power Soulution Sdn Bhd, Simpro Engineering and AAIBE Fund. In particular, I would like to thank the members of the members of the MNC-CIGRE and IEEE-PES Malaysian Chapter for their help in all aspects of the organization of this professional meeting.

Thank you very much and I hope to see you again in the next EPSCOM event in the future.