IT Fiesta @ RP

After nearly a year of preparation by SIT and iDA, IT Fiesta @ RP took off on the 2nd of June with 60 participants from 10 different secondary schools. As with our RP culture, we broke the students away from their regular clique of friends, and randomly grouped them up into teams of five. Some made friends quickly while others took a little while to warm up. But any reservations were quickly dispelled when the entire group was turned over to the Adventure Learning Center for four hours of raw excitement. Laughter engulfed the wary silence and soon everyone was playing like they knew each other for a long time.

                The end of the first day left the students thirsting for more. While the students had a series of fun-filled activities in the pipeline, the camp did not detract from the key objectives of introducing programming and instilling a better appreciation of IT into every student present. Day two saw more hands on with Rurple, an environment designed to help ease newbies into the world of programming. Students got their hands dirty writing python codes and thinking logically to communicate with the computer. Most acknowledged that programming was tough, but at the same time they fully recognised the benefits of the knowledge gained.

                Several industry experts honoured us with their presence. A session was scheduled for the speakers to share with these young participants as to what an IT career is all about. Speakers Caris and Lisa talked about their career path in their current designations in Barclays. Amidst doubts and uncertainties posed, the speakers took care in reassuring the audience that they can look forward to a challenging and interesting career in the IT industry. Allen Simonsen gave his insights on how the gaming industry works, and offered sound advice to those harbouring dreams of working in this highly competitive but lucrative gaming industry.

A delicate balance between sustaining the fun factor for the students and achieving our objective of getting them to appreciate IT was maintained throughout IT Fiesta @ RP. During the visit to Sungei Buloh, we brought them on a trail which saw the use of wireless and web technologies to better understand the flora and fauna in this wetland reserve. As the students immersed themselves into the world of nocturnal animals in the Night Safari, they were encouraged to take digital photographs of their experiences. These photographs were then used on the last 2nd day where they worked on a Photo Hunt game. Everyone got hands on experience using Adobe Photoshop to tweak and prepare their photographs.

A sumptuous BBQ dinner was held over at the Campus Height before the camp drew to an end. Fabulous food from Kaffe Esplanade kept their mouths and fingers busy. A heavy thunderstorm dampened some of the BBQ food, but definitely not their spirits. Even as the entire group retired to the Agora Halls for a rest, many were still wide awake and full of vigour.

The grand finale was the prize presentation ceremony which was graced by the presence of Eric Lauzon, CTO of Nortel Asia and our School Director, Mervin Beng. A deeper insight into the direction of IT and the purpose of the camp was shared by Eric and Mervin and participants fully benefitted from their wealth of experience.

                After which, the 5 days IT Fiesta @ RP was officially over but the friendships forged, lessons learnt, and time shared will surely propel each and every participant to greater heights of achievement. We wish them all the best!

From Joseph Tan on behalf of IT Fiesta @ RP committee/Revision 1 by Julian Wong
Extending my thanks to iDA, SIT, OIS, CSM and all the committed staff who had made IT Fiesta @ RP possible.

APNIC seminar and Workshop

Republic Polytechnic again played host to trainers from the Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC) based in Australia. They were here on the 10 – 12 June 2008 to conduct two courses after having a successful run last year.
 

The course on Internet Resource Management Essentials (IRME) was conducted on 10th June 2008 for over 200 SIT and SEG students, alongside over 20 professionals from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and technical staff from various System Integrators and Institutes of Higher Learning.  The course gave students an insight into how Internet resources are managed, from the regional and country level and how policies affecting the future of the Internet in the country are formed. Other topics such the future growth paths of the Internet as well as examples of IP addressing plans were also discussed.

The students expressed that the course provided an insight beyond classroom knowledge as to how such organizations are involved in the management of the Internet as well as how local service providers are able to manage resources such as IP addresses and issues pertaining to domain names.

The second 2-day IPv6 workshop conducted on 11-12 June involved technical level and supervisory staff from local ISPs. The deployment of IPv6 was also discussed in detail. Hands on workshops were conducted in addition to the materials discussed. In these workshops attendees were able to simulate a large ISP deployment of IPv6 addresses. Staff from the Republic Polytechnic were able to work alongside technical staff from ISPs and topics such as migration strategy and IPv6 sub-netting were mapped out together.

Republic Polytechnic will like to convey its special thanks to the 2 trainers from APNIC , Cecil Goldstein and John Tan, for conducting the workshops.

Written by Ivan Wee/Revision 1 by Julian Wong

Our First SIT Graduates' Get-Together Event @ RP

After nearly 2 months of preparation, our very first SIT Graduates’ Get-Together Event took place on 30 Aug 08 with close to 100 graduates and 26 staff. We specially organized this graduates’ event as our real pioneer batch who have not set foot to our Woodlands campus, to come to our new campus and catch up with their long-lost facilitators and other academic staff. Also this event is to allow our second and third graduate batches to come back and update us as to their current work life and for some who have made it to the universities, their academic lives so far.

Many hours were spent collating graduates data, inviting them to come through various methods (calling, mass-emailing, mailing out our specially-designed invitation cards), logistics arrangements, venue decoration, designing survey questions and also, arranging sumptuous finger food for all. 

The first graduates started to stream in at about 3pm despite of the heavy downpour and slowly batches of graduates started to stream in to W1-Forum. Each attending graduate were given a survey form for them to update their personal, academic and professional particulars, and also asking them some questions to gather ideas as what they would like to see for future events.  And all graduates get to walk away with a goodie bag containing either a cuddly RP graduation bear or a RP Year Book plus other meaningful RP memorabilia.

Our graduates were definitely very excited to interact and catch up with their long-lost facilitators, program chairs, and not to mention their ex-classmates who they have not meet up since graduation.  There was clear team spirit among our pioneers, and some graduates are doing quite well in local universities (NUS, NTU, SMU) and our working graduates are contributing well in their work at HP, NCS, SingTel.

A sumptuous Hi-tea buffet was held at W1-Forum for all attending graduates and staff. Kaffe Esplanade has roped in to provide fabulous food and beverages to keep our mouths and fingers busy at the buffet queues and bistro tables.  

We have also invited our Office of Student & Graduate Affairs (OSG) and Office of Industry & Career Services (OIC) to give a short presentation of what is in store for our graduates for Club Republic, career advisory and bonding activities at the Adventure Learning Centre.

After which the skies cleared up, it is time to conclude the end of our first SIT Graduates’ Get-Together Event @ RP, but the friendship and network contacts built, and time well spent is a starting point for each of our graduates to think and forge ahead in their respective academic and career progression tracks.  We wish them all the best!

On behalf of the Event Organizing Committee, we would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation and thanks to all Cypher Club student helpers, graduates, internal and external partners, and all dedicated staff who had made our first-ever SIT Graduates’ Get-Together Event @ RP possible.

First Draft by Cheah Siew Yen/ Final Review by Frank Ng, Manager (Student Affairs)

SIT IT Security Seminar on 30 Oct 2008 – IT Security on the go!

The inaugural SIT IT Security Seminar was held on 30 Oct 08 at 2pm with about 40 external guests and booth participants, together with our staff members. The theme for this event, “Data Security on the Go!” was chosen to promote awareness of possible loss of confidential data stored on mobile devices (e.g. laptops, USB thumb drives and end-user devices) which could be costly, embarrassing and detrimental to corporations.  

The target audience for this event were IT professionals who have a need to help protect their companies’ confidential data and having to deal with staff working with laptops and other mobile devices. The series of talks in this event were aimed at sharing some of the best practices and various tools that could help them to create awareness regarding data security and protection. Invited guests included IT engineers, consultants and managers working in both public and private organizations.

Mr. Mervin Beng, the Director of the School for Information and Communications Technology, Republic Polytechnic, gave a welcoming address providing some details of the collaboration and sample IT projects that RP were undertaking in the school Technology Development Center focused on IT Security, Open Source Systems and Interactive Digital Media.

Several prominent speakers from the industry including IDA Singapore, Cisco Systems, CBL Data Recovery and RP-SIT staff presented valuable information along this theme.  The keynote speaker from IDA, Mr. Martin Khoo, shared details on Singapore’s  strategy to securing the Cyberspace.  Mr. Tom Koenig from Cisco presented on practical security solutions for wireless networks and mobile workers. Mr. Bill Margeson from CBL Data Recovery presented on the importance of properly disposing of used hard disks as there can be confidential data that can be recovered if these are not properly erased off. Two RP staffs, Dr. Ng Tek Ming presented on his research work on Digital Watermarking and Mr. Alan Seow presented on a useful data encryption tool, Truecrypt.

Several external vendors including Data Terminator, Singapore Computer Systems, Systex, Spirent and AKL Technology also participated in the booth exhibition area displaying their solutions and product offerings. Many vendors brought along their state-of-the-art equipment showcasing latest industry offerings for data security.  Participants and RP staff had opportunities to network and interact with the participating vendors and speakers and exchanged ideas on current trends and issues regarding data security in the ever increasing number and data capacity of mobile devices.

Towards the end of the presentations, participants toured the exhibition area to chat and view demonstration videos showcased by the vendors.

On behalf of the Event Organizing Committee, RP would like to extend our thanks to all invited guests, external vendors, internal and external partners, and all dedicated staff who had made this seminar event a success. 

First Draft by Cheah Siew Yen, AO
Revised by Felix, Program Chair, DIT