Year End Greetings

Hello everyone! It's the time of year for joy and cheer! 

Time has flown by once again and we are glad to say that we've seen a great year behind us. A big shout out of gratitude to all our sponsors, partners, collaborators, family and friends. Thank you for standing by us and braving the thick and thin together. Your help and support is very much appreciated and acknowledged! :D 

As you start making plans for the coming holidays and festive season of Christmas, let us not forget to give back to the community as well! If you would like to lend a helping hand to children, the Agathians Shelter (www.agathians.org), The Salvation Army Children's Home (http://salvationarmypch.blogspot.com/) and House of Hope (http://www.houseofhope.org.my/) would be more than happy to receive you as a guest! May the joy of Christmas be spread to them as well.

Once again, our team at HAT would like to wish each and every one of you a Blessed Christmastime, Happy Holidays and Happy new Year to come! May our partnerships and  bonds of friendships last on for years to come and only get stronger as we build more bridges.. 

May the new year of 2015 hold more exciting ventures for us all! 

Looking forward to New Year 2015!

                                                                                                                               By: HAT team

The Ending of a Journey Together

After 2 years, BIDP Batch 1 comes to a close in September 2014. With the final Performance Evaluation being filled by supervisors or managers of each participant, we conclude our tracking on them. We would like to thank all the participating companies; Agilent Technologies, CCM, JKM, ABI, and last but not least IPharm, for their support throughout this span of two-years, from supporting every team building and CSR event, to sending in Performance Evaluation (PE) reports on time, to providing a conducive and comfortable training space. Without your support and cooperation this training wouldn’t have been a success.

It has been a joy and a learning process along the ups and downs throughout the training program. We are glad to say that the learnings have been brought forward to be used in the BIDP II batches 1 and 2 to make things better than the last.

The PEs which have been followed up every quarterly showed steady progress for the better for majority of the participants and that has been very encouraging to see, that the training has served its purpose of enhancing technical and skills and knowledge of the participants to be more effective and efficient in their workplaces. We sincerely hope that it will only get better for the participants in their career paths wherever it may be.

As friendships and connections have been made in the time spent together here in Penang for the training, we hope that these friendships and networks will continue strongly in the academic and industry to help each other grow in our respective fields, tapping on each other’s expertise and fields of knowledge. May this spur us on to be enthusiastic for our work in the pharmaceutical, chemical and life science industries respectively.

We at HAT would like to wish all the participants of BIDP I, all the very best in your future endeavours in the company and industry. Do keep in touch with us and for anything that we can be a help to you, do feel free to come to us, as we will be more than happy to share and help you in whatever ways we can.

Special thanks goes out to TalentCorp Malaysia for being a big part of the BIDP training, for being the main sponsor and for the support in coming all the way to meet up with the participants and host company representatives. May we continue in close partnership for programs to come! 

Hari Raya Haji 2014

To all our Muslim sponsors, partners, co-workers, colleagues and friends.. We at HAT would like to take this time to wish you all a very Happy Hari Raya Haji! 

May it be a good time of togetherness and sharing in and among your families! 

Aidilfitri Wishes 2014 from HAT

Once again it is the time of year,

To wish those who are far and near,  

A blessed time with friends and family,

As they celebrate a Happy Hari Raya Aidilfitri! 

From us all at Human Architecture Technologies (HAT), we would like to sincerely wish the BIDP students (wherever you may be now), our partners in work, friends and colleagues a very happy and enjoyable Hari Raya Aidilfitri this year! 

May this festive season be well spent with family happiness and joy! Let the cheer of the season shine through to the rest of the year ahead! Have a wonderful celebration to all those who are celebrating and to those who are not, may you have a pleasant holiday time.. :) 

Thank you for all the support that we have received and we hope there will be many more opportunities to come to work together! *Cheers*

Teambuilding Fun!

The day was beautiful: The sun was out to play, the soft breeze was blowing, the skies were as blue as they could be with puffs of white clouds just enough to give us the occasional shade.. 

What more could we ask for? It was perfect for our day out for team building!

Team building take one: Air Itam dam team building facility, Penang

First, there was breakfast to give everyone the strength they need. And maybe to wake some people up.. followed by some simple workout steps through aerobics, led by the person in charge from the facility.

Then the real fun began.. from rope climbing and tyre swings which test arm strength, to tight rope challenges and high wall obstacle where ultimate team efforts are needed, the unity and connection the group had with each other was truly shown. Whenever there was a member who had difficulty or seem to be struggling with a task, someone was always around to help him/her get up and get through it, even if it ends up in ridiculous giggles and eruptious laughter :) 

After it all, lunch was provided and the tired young people made their way home.. 

Team building activities: aerobics, rope climb, tyre swings, wall obstacle, and tight rope challenge! 

The next team building session leading had to be left to a friend of mine who was kind enough to help out after I could not make there. The day went on as planned, with two field games being taught and played to its maximum fun on the field of Youth Park, Penang. The games were Captain's Ball and Ultimate Frisbee.

Simple rules and regulations were explained before the games started with Ultimate Frisbee. It was great fun with the day so clear and friends who were sporting to be with.

Ultimate Frisbee!

Next! It was Captain's Ball time.. well, after some rest time and drinks that is. Also, some more rules and regulations once again, since they are two different games.

After that it was rest and then to lunch together! 

A very big Thank You goes to the Game Master of this day, Mr Donavan Ong for an awesome game time! 

And of course, to all the participants who made it that day, Thank You for coming along to make it a success. Just for being good sports, I applaud you! 

Till we meet again for something like this again, take care and all the best! 

                                                                                                                                    Written by: Mel A.

Meet Ups for Makan-times!

Even though we don't see each other as frequently as we'd like, all the times that we've met up for a lunch / dinner, were memories to add to our BIDP family album!

Since pictures are worth a thousand words, I will let the pictures speak for themselves below:

Food outings with our trainers!

Birthday celebrations in and out of class!

And there were everyday lunches, Graduation lunches, BBQs and Hari Raya makan times too!

And dinner times together also, when we get to organize it :) 

May we continue to share fellowship this sweet with each other, even though we might be from different batches of BIDP.. I'm glad we can all be friends. 

                                                                                                                         Written by: Mel A

The BIDP Lab

For the past two years, BIDP practical courses have been conducted in the Agilent BIDP Laboratory, situated in Ipharm, Penang. 

The lab is divided into two distinct lab sections; Bio-Analysis Lab and Wet Chemistry Lab. 

The two parts of the BIDP Lab 

Each Lab is then segregated into different specific rooms for different purposes. For example, the Bio-Analysis Lab is divided into four different rooms , with each room having their own functions for qPCR experiments: 

a) General Bio-lab Room - Sample prep area
b) Pre-PCR Room & DNA-free Room - Mastermix and template addition
c) qPCR Room - qPCR run

The four different rooms and their contents

Meanwhile, the Wet Chemistry lab contains the Balance Room and Instrument Area where the micro balances, FTIR, GC-FID and UHPLC are located respectively.

There is also the Dissolution tester and UV-Vis Spectrophotometer in the Wet Chemistry lab area. 

Clockwise from top left: FTIR, GC-FID, UHPLC, & Dissolution Tester

Other places in the lab is occupied by the other supporting instruments and equipment which are needed.

Clockwise from top left: Chemical cabinet for corrosives, Vaccum pump and drying oven, chemical cabinet for flammables, fridge, magnetic stirrer, pH meters and sonicator

All in all the BIDP lab has been a place where many experiments, demonstrations and lab practicals have been conducted, either for the BIDP program or not.

Looking forward, the lab's usage can only grow with each user who come along; and we especially share the joy of each success that have been achieved through the BIDP students in the lab! 

                                                                                                                             Written by: Melanie P.

Lab sessions in Progress

So in March, we had our Phase II students from BIDP II batch 2 in ABI (MARDI, Serdang) and Phase III students from BIDP II batch 1 in Ipharm (Penang) keeping us busy in the lab with practical sessions as the main course, and the sides were of course assignments and lab reports.

All the way from Wellington, New Zealand came our trainer for these two sessions: Mr Chor Ee Tan; whom we welcome fondly as one of the most loved trainer of the BIDP modules. Him, and the chocolates he brings along of course!

Chor Ee in class teaching and watching presentations in progress

Lab practical sessions are always fun to tutor, especially if your trainees are an interesting bunch of people! Many antics and sharing were exchanged during the times in the lab, but all the while having a tutor watching them closely as to not go beyond their allocated time slots. 

This qPCR practical sessions saw two groups of students; in Penang and Serdang, having their Advance DNA Detection Technology knowledge tested as they planed carried out experiments with minimal supervision.

Lab practical sessions in ABI for Advanced qPCR

Lab sessions in IPharm Bio-Analysis Lab

What more effective way for students to get the learning experience that they all need and want than hands- on practical sessions where they can experience the labs in a special way, whether or not they will use all the instruments they learn of or not. Questions can always be directed to the trainer or tutors during the practical sessions which enhance the learning of students and trainers/tutors alike.

In these qPCR lab practical sessions, we thank our ever enthusiastic trainer, Chor Ee for a brief, yet great time together with us, here in Malaysia.

May there be many more happy and satisfied trainees as they experience the labs we have the practical sessions at!

                                                                                                                           Written by: Melanie Ann

Personal Data Protection Act 2010

Personal Data Protection Act 2010

Assalamualaikum and good day from HAT,

As you may be aware, above act took effect since November 2013.  All companies dealing in personal data including institutions that offer training (and handle students' personal data) are required to comply with the act and register with Ministry of Communication and Multimedia, Personal Data Protection Department.

The full act can be found below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8izFmm3HRridl9PYk43M1pLVkE/edit?usp=sharing

Please make yourself familiar with it. Moving forward it will becoming more risky to use other people info nowadays. You could be fine or jail should you being convicted with 'misuse' of personal data when you use it as the Data Users ...even to your own staff.

Example of "Personal Data" are: 

• Name and address 
• identification number 
• passport number 
• health information 
• e-mail 
• picture 
• recording images in closed circuit television (CCTV) 
• information in personal files 
• Bank account details 
• Credit card details

Data Users - means any person who processes the data and any person who has control over or authorizes the processing of any personal data in respect of commercial transactions. 

Data Subject - means an individual who is the subject of personal data.

More info can be found from KKMM website:

www.pdp.gov.my

Lunar New Year 2014 Greetings

It's the time for music, visitation, red packets,sweet tangerines, traditional cookies, red cloth and clothing once again! 

To all those who are celebrating the season of Chinese Lunar New Year (Wood Horse Year), we at HAT would like to wish you a very blessed Chinese New Year indeed! May this year bring you much joy and happiness.. 

This wish does not exclude all the other friends and partners we have of course, even though you may not celebrate the season, we still would like to wish you all a very happy holiday season! Do enjoy the cookies and goodies of the season with the rest of us! 

We wish you all the very best in whatever this year may bring!

Closing Day of Phase I in ABI

It has already been 4 months gone by. How time flies indeed. The second batch of BIDP students in ABI Serdang has come to their own “Closing”, on the 31^st December 2013.

The mood around was generally moody to begin with, as it was New Year’s eve. But it got better as they got excited about finishing the first phase of the program. It  got even better as the VIPs  came, namely from TalentCorp Malaysia, and the events started.

The day’s event started with the recap of the training program’s objectives in Phase I by Dr Leong Chuei Wuei, a time to look back and remember why the training was started and also the reasons for the trainees attending. But more importantly, what have the trainees gained and obtained from all the months of theory and practical sessions.

Next was a time of seriousness by En Azhar Amin, looking back at the post assessment results for all the modules in Phase I. For those who unfortunately failed some modules, they would have had a time of learning why they did so and also how they can do better or understand better the subjects.

After a brief tea break, the day’s event continued with the presentations by each trainee on their company’s profiles and/or the projects they are involved in. The majority of the crowd was from Biocon and they had presentations in pairs. Since there were so many of them, the presentations continued after lunch.

The fun time that the participants had from their time at the Children’s Home in Petaling Jaya were recollected through a session by Steven Ng from Dream Catcher. We do hope that the spirit of sharing with children the joys of science will remain in the participants and continue to grow with time as they go into the working world.

Agilent Technologies Malaysia representative Ms Khairul Azreena had a session of introducing Agilent Technologies Malaysia to the participants as an eye opener to what Agilent does. After that, the certificate presentations were done and many pictures were taken in memory of the whole day.

The participants wore happy smiles as they left the premises, some even had tears in their eyes!

Trainees receiving their certificates from Agilent and TalentCorp representatives

They will have a month’s break before coming back for the Phase 2 in the same place. We hope that they will be ready and refreshed when they do return. Meanwhile, we do wish them all the very best for whatever their projects may be in their work places!