DaEng2013

Hello peeps.. miss me??

Yup.. a bit bz.. with kids and study...

I know... I  know.. excuses.. excuses...

ok, let me update you on a conference I attended recently, DaEng2013

DAENG 2013 Program Booklet

It's an international conference of course...

As a summary, what I like about the coference:
1. It's international. So, it means you mingle with the 'international' crowd. foreigners from different countries come here to share experiences and knowledge.
2. The venue is Cititel, Mid Valley.. it's a shopping paradise there. Especially, the Year-End Sale is here.. I even bought a new perfume... huhuhu...
3. The papers here are in good quality. The committee is very selective and only good papers were presented here. Kudos to Dr Yap. She even presented and I thought it was among the best presentations, well prepared slides, clear, good English. if only there was the Best Presenter award... TT.TT
4. There's a limited presenters (small crowd) and I like that. We come to know each other and can discuss more about the papers and anything under the sun.

The Keynote Speaker (the one and only)

However, there's a lot of things need to be improved as well. I know, it's the 'First'.. The Second should be even better.Among improvements:
1. Most of the problem is in terms of administration of the conference. The announcements prior to the conference should be emailed. Even reminders too.The conference program is not according to schedule. I was so disappointed to know that the one of the keynote speaker from Korea was a no-show. The committee should just search for a replacement.
2. The third day venue for the workshop was not suitable for foreigners. It's easy for locals to come there, but, for people from another country, at least transport should be arranged. Even, the fire drill was not helping the situation at all!! That was the first workshop I attended that include a fire drill in the itinerary!! Hahaha...
3. Presenters must polish their skill for presenting. Fuhhh... 3 days of so much difficulties in understanding different English accented. However, the slides should be helpful because, whenever I don't understand, I'll read and refer to  the slides.

I see it's common now in Malaysia, foreigners come to top universities as post graduate students. I see it as a positive injection to our education system. I wonder where our local students are........??? hmmmm..... overseas maybe...

The Soft Set Theory Workshop by Dr. Xia from UMP

I hate to say this, but I see this as most common. There's 2 groups of people attending conferences; the knowledge-seekers and the only-presenter. The knowledge-seeker will attend all three days of the conference because they are in need of knowledge. The only-presenters, in the other hand, just come to present their papers, get their certificate and leave. I find that the 2nd group is the loosing group. And I think you know why....

All in all, it was a enriching conference and I will attend the 2nd DaEng, insyaAllah.