THE LAUNCHING OF THE AGILENT CSI WEEK 2018
SPEECH BY CHIEF MINISTER OF PENANG
AT THE LAUNCHING OF THE AGILENT CSI WEEK 2018
14 AUGUST 2018
WISMA YEAP CHOR EE
Ooi Peng Ee
CEO, Penang Science Cluster
Dato’ Yoon Chon Leong
Director, Penang Science Cluster
Chai Meng Fee
President and General Manager, Agilent Technologies LDA Malaysia
Chan Keng Cheong
Vice President of Global Procurement and Materials, Keysight Technologies
Sinan Eserman
Vice President and Managing Director, B. Braun Medical Industries
Choo Wai Heng
Founder and CEO, Dreamcatcher
Ladies and gentlemen
Good morning!
It gives me great pleasure to be here today to launch Agilent Technologies’s CSI Week for Upper Secondary school students.
Penang is known as Silicon Island of the East. It is home to many of the largest semiconductor and electronic companies in the world such as, Intel, Broadcom, Keysight, Motorola, HPMM – many of them present in this room today. This is well known fact.
What is not so common knowledge, however, is that Penang is also home to the medical device industry. In fact, one-third of the medical devices companies in Malaysia is based in Penang such as Agilent Technologies, B. Braun, St Jude – again, many of them also present in this room too. Not surprising, Penang accounts for one-third of total export value of RM18 billion of medical devices.
Whether it is the semiconductors, electronics instruments or medical devices industry, one thing they all have in common – they need talented people to drive their companies forward!
To grow our future talent pool, the Penang State Government initiated Penang Science Cluster (PSC) with the industry back in 2009.
PSC, as you all know by now, is a Private, Public, Partnership; set up as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, with strong support from the Penang State Government and the MNCs in Penang.
Through PSC, the State Government is preparing our young for the future by sparking interest in STEM and inspiring innovation. Here are some examples of that:
- PSC supports 220 schools in our TechMentor Lego Robotics, Embedded Systems Coding, Radio Astronomy and AgriTech programs, with 200+ volunteer mentors going to schools with hardware and software to mentor students.
- PSC is developing coding skills in 100,000 students in Penang through a State grant of RM2 million in 2018.
- PSC brings 100 over schools to our Science Cafes for hands-on workshops through sponsorships from Motorola Solutions Foundation and US Embassy.
- Just 3 weeks ago, through the sponsorship from Vitrox Technologies and NationGate, Junior Innovate program was launched right here for 23 primary schools in Penang
Today, I am happy to launch yet another program to inspire our students, but this time in the life science field - Agilent Technologies CSI!
I understand that in this program, our secondary students, acting as detectives, will work in teams to compete using their observational and deductive skills, real forensic techniques and use of industry equipment such as DNA PCR, blood typing, fingerprint to solve a crime. Students will not only learn forensic science technology,but will understand how these are used in real-life in industry.
students from 30 schools over 5 weekdays, and members of the public on Saturday, will get the experience of their life time during Agilent Technologies CSI Week. I want to thank Agilent Technologies for sponsoring the QPCR and FTIR equipment for DNA and materials analysis as well as sponsoring all the students and public expenses for the workshops.
At this point, I would also like to acknowledge our industry partners in Penang Science Cluster, namely Motorola, NI, Intel, HPMM, B Braun, Agilent and Keysight, DreamCatcher, Vitrox, Exabytes and Mini-Circuits for their strong support. When industry, government and community work together towards a common goal of inspiring and educating our young, Penang and Malaysia will be successful.
With this, I hereby declare the launch of Agilent Technologies CSI Week!.
Thank you.