USM – FIRST IPT TO BE RECOGNISED AS CERTIFIED TRAINING PROVIDER FOR OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

KEPALA BATAS, 23 Aug.: Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) became the first Institution of Higher Learning (IPT) in the country to be recognized as a Certified Training Provider of Open Source Software when the Advanced Medical and Dental Institute (AMDI), USM received its appointment from the Malaysia Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) today.

The certificate of appointment was presented to Dr. Hj. Ramli Saad, the Director of AMDI, USM by Dato’ Dr. Nor Aliah Mohd Zahri, Deputy Director-General (ICT) of MAMPU in a special ceremony held at AMDI, USM.

With this recognition, USM, through AMDI will function as a training and guidance provider for the public sector in the use of open source software.

Dato Dr. Nor Aliah, in her speech, said that besides USM, 10 other training centres have been identified and appointed as Certified Training Providers since 13 August 2010.

MAMPU has observed that AMDI, USM is prepared and has the potential to carry out training in the open source software to the staff in the public sector, particularly in the northern region and MAMPU believes that USM will be able to shoulder this responsibility,” she said.

The use of open source software started with the ‘Open Source Software’ Public Sector Master Plan that was launched on 16 July 2004 to reduce total ownership, increase freedom of choice of software use, increase level of operations between systems and software and increase the growth of the ICT industry.

Among the well-known open source software are OpenOffice.org, Fundamental Linux, Vitualisation for System Administrator using OSS, MySQL for System Developer, Joomla! and others.

At the same function, the Director of AMDI, Dr. Hj. Ramli Saad said that AMDI through the AMDI Open Source Software initiative have conducted training and open source software development since three years ago under the Bio-ICT Centre.

“We are very serious in supporting the aspirations of the government and we are extremely pleased with our appointment. We have also taken proactive measures by organizing the first course on open source software, which commences today and ends on 25 August 2010. A total of 15 participants from various government departments are attending ths course. This makes AMDI, USM the first centre to conduct the couse since receiving the appointment,” he said.

Also present at the function were Hj. Mohamad Rosli Abd. Razak, Director of the ICT Policy and Planning Division, MAMPU and Puan Tan King Ing, the Deputy Director of the Open Source & Open Standard, ICT Policy and Planning Division, MAMPU.

Photo: Mohd Fairus Md. Isa
Date Submitted     :     23-8-2010
For further information please contact Mohd Azrul Mohd Azhar (e-mail)

USM – INDUSTRY COLLABORATION: GATHERING OF ICT EXPERTS FROM VARIOUS COUNTRIES

PENANG, 22 September: After successfully organizing the Tech Insights Penang Simposium last year, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has once again been conferred the honour of hosting the Tech Insights Penang Symposium 2010 this year.

Apart from the participation of industry partners, the Symposium will also witness a gathering of experts in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) from various countries.

Prof. Rosni Abdullah, the Dean of the School of Computer Sciences, USM said that the participation of foreign industry partners is proof that the symposium as well as the efforts of the government to develop the field of ICT has received recognition in the eyes of the world.

“This year, Tech Insight will not only witness the participation of ICT experts from Singapore and Sri Lanka but also industry representatives from world-renowned companies and ICT experts from Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Programme, which is being used in more than 90 countries world-wide.

“It is the hope of Tech Insight to create a platform where technology and new software can be shared and that this will become a culture in the country. At the same time, it will help the local community, especially the youth in learning about Information Technology, which as we know, is advancing daily,” he said.

Meanwhile, Raymond Chou, Operations Manager for MVP said that MPV is very pleased to be able to organize this programme with USM.

“We chose USM because USM has a proven track record in terms of facilities and sophisticated equipment and is also prepared to lead in the development of ICT in Malaysia,” said Raymond, who is also the Director of Technology, Redynamics Asia Sdn.Bhd, a well-known company providing ICT Training in the country.

The three-day Symposium, commencing on 22 September will be held at the Eureka Complex, USM and will focus on new software that will be introduced into the world market such as SharePoint 2010, Visual Audio 2010, SQL Server 2008 R2 and many others.

More than 200 participants from various well-known companies in the field of computers such as Dell, Intel, Agilent Technologies dan Fairchild will be at the Symposium.

USM-JAPAN FORGE CLOSER TIES IN TELECOMMUNICATION COLLABORATION

PENANG, 20 October , Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding through the National Advanced IPv6 Centre with IPv6 Japan Promotion Council to promote and enhance technologies related to the Next Generation Internet.
The MoU includes efforts to advance three areas of research and development activities:-
1. Strategies and policies that involve:

• Outlook on the demand for new IPv6 telecommunication services.
• Comparison and contrast of the IPv6 strategies in Malaysia and in Japan.
• IPv6 Policies of the Governments in the trend of integration and competition.
• Mutual contribution in the respective internal IPv6 trials and deployment with the relevant authorities and associated IPv6 projects.

2. Evolution towards IPv6 that contribute to a common benefit in utilizing and upgrading projected development such as:

• Architecture (services, requirements, evolution strategy, etc.).
• Transition (economic & technical factors, steps, etc.).
• IPv6 & Wireless technology solutions: 3G, 3.5G, 4G, access network, applications.
• IPv6 in the main sectors: Transportation, Health, Environment, Public Safety.
• IPv6 & Wireless sensors networks: development, use cases and business models.

3. Smooth process of IPv4 address depletion in terms of:

• Address policies around the IPv4 address depletion and other processes in the Internet Registries.
• Promotion and increasing awareness.
• Technologies for maintaining  communication between existing IPv4 users and emerging users who no longer have an IPv4 global address.
• In-country strategies for deploying the countermeasures in operators, vendors and other stakeholders

Problematic Software Courts Disaster, Says ICT Expert

Monday, 21 February 2011 18:30

By Kuah Guan Oo
Pix by Saliman Leman

BANGI, 21 Feb. 2011 – Software with problems can cause disaster if they are not detected, tested and rectified in a framework of quality certification, says an ICT expert here today.

Prof Dr Aziz Deraman, who is the Vice Chancellor of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT), said softwares, like humans, are always exposed to diseases like heart attack which can be prevented if it is detected early.

He cited the case of the “SCUD vs Patriot” missiles during the Gulf War where 20 American soldiers were killed and 100 others injured when their Patriot guided missile missed hitting the Iraqi’s SCUD missile as an example where software with problems had brought about disasters.

An arithmetic rectification found that the time calculated for the Patriot to hit the SCUD was 0.34 seconds late and that even though corrections had been made earlier, it was not done to all its programming codes, said Prof Dr Aziz when delivering his inaugural professorial lecture titled “In Search for Quality Software”.

In the case of the rocket launcher Ariane 5 disaster in June 1996, the rocket exploded 40 seconds after take-off because the software specifications for Ariane 4 were used for Ariane 5 when the specifications of the two rockets were different.

“Pre-launch tests on the software were not conducted until the actual launch,” said Prof Dr Aziz who had served in UKM in various capacities for 28 years, including as Dean of the Faculty of Information Science and Technology before he was appointed Vice Chancellor of UMT last year.

He said with the ever-growing dependence on software, the challenges for research in search of quality software were to safeguard the harmony between the software and users; to detect software “illnesses” before disasters strike and to face the situation of attempting to measure the unmeasurable.

But the biggest challenge in the search for quality software was to try to measure the software because “we cannot control what we cannot measure”.

 

For this reason, several approaches had been developed to try to measure the quality of software such as quantitative values to explain a certain phenomenon; matrix size of the software which is getting less and less relevant and user evaluation that is directed at only external factors and matrix as a measurement of “quality software”.  

Prof Aziz, who had held the post of Deputy Director of the UKM Computer Centre, said the approach they had used to evaluate the software quality of the university’s  Centre for Information Technology was based on “Goal/Question/Matrix” or GQM which is a technique to identify the important matrix in the lifespan of the software. .

This approach could lead to the certification of the software by a third party similar to ISO certification, said Prof Dr Aziz who was born at di Kampong Tok ku, Cabang Tiga Kuala Terengganu in 1959.

He had his primary education at Sekolah Kebangsaan Pusat Cabang Tiga Kuala Terengganu and secondary education at Sekolah Menengah Sains Pahang before doing his matriculation at Sekolah Alam Shah.

He was offered a place to do medicine at UKM but he switched to Computer Science where he graduated with his first degree in 1982. He obtained his Masters from Glasgow University in 1984 and his PhD from UMIST Manchester in 1992.

Apart from his lectures and research works and publications, Prof Aziz is also active with organisations outside the campus where he had served as advisor, panel member and consultant in ICT. He has to date supervised 37 Master students and 20 PhD candidates.

The Market for fuel cell is expected to take shape in Malaysia in five years’ time, says a UKM don

Friday, 29 July 2011 19:52

By Shahfizal Musa
Pix by Mohd Hairul Azmi
BANGI, 29 July 2011 – Fuel cell will be one source of clean and efficient energy in the 21^st century and its market  is expected  to  take shape in Malaysia in five years’ time.

The expected market of fuel cell is for powering motorcycles, which is the preferred mode of transport in busy and congested cities.

Professor Abdul Amir H. Kadhum from the Fuel Cell Institute says this when delivering his public lecture here today on Fuel Cell Membrane Assembly to Enhance the Green Technology. He added that there is a niche market for fuel cell energy in Asia and Malaysia.

At the moment the role of academia is to find is how to reduce the cost of fuel cell production, increase durability and extend the life span of a fuel cell product

The advantages of fuel cell is that it emits zero green house gases. Unlike internal combustion engine which burn fossil fuels and produce harmful green house gasses, the only by-product of fuel cell is water.

Fuel cell produce energy through electrochemical reaction from hydrogen and oxygen. The energy generated can be converted into electric and can be generated at the point of use.

Professor Abdul Amir said that the trend now is to move away from centralised energy system like electric energy generated from power grid to a more decentralised energy generation system.

 
Right now the issue in fuel cell is how to lower the cost of the production of fuel cell devices. Currently Platinum is needed as a catalyst for energy generated from fuel cell which increase the cost of fuel cell devices.

He stressed that researchers in the field have to collaborate with the private sector and establish a clear schedule for commercialisation. This way it shows the seriousness of the parties in their commitment to create something which is new and better than what is already available.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Tan Sri Dato’ Wira Dr Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hassan Shahabudin, deans of faculties, senior universities official lecturers and students attended the lecture.