Hey there people, welcome to another episode of the game of Realities or Possibilities. Today, we are going to talk about ...., it’s the wrong script. On 23rd November 2009, after waiting in vain for 2 years, finally the SASians of 2007 batch as well as our new SMSAians friends were able to go on a trip to i-centre, Anggerek Desa & DST HQ, Tungku Link.
Our journey started from SMSA at around 7.20am, however before we were able to depart, Miss Tan, supervising teacher got to ask for Bilik Kerani key as the bus still haven’t arrive at 7 am and usually it always arrive early, so we have to call & ask but I forgot to bring the bas company phone no., so I gotta find buku telefon for the number, haha kurang pandai me!
Then, bus jalan to BSB, otw stop-by @ Seria bus station, Masjid Zainab, Sg Liang masjid & lastly Soon Lee Sg Liang to pick up some of them. Meanwhile, as they board the bus, I became the
'ticket boy' collecting payment from those who haven’t pay. On the other hand, otw to BSB, we saw a lot embassies car going down to KB, wonder what is on there? And, we saw 1 of those cars 'rosak di tengah jalan', pity the ambassador, kesian! In the bus, Honda Accord was mentioned frequently, was about ... biarlah rahsia since its private matters.
Di i- centre
At around 9.30 am, we reached i-centre.1 of the expression that some of them said was 'so small one the building'. While waiting for the person-in-charge, we wandered around the ground floor of i-centre. Some of them were snapping pictures, some were putting their eyes on Coffeezone, and
some were eyeing hot guys (some of the girls did spot 1, the name was Nick). Person-in-charge was Dewi, and she wanted to meet Teo who was corresponding with her. She thought that I’m a teacher or staff member, but unfortunately not, I’m just a student! Then, every1 trying to kacau me calling me 'Teacher Teo', haha! Isn’t there is a Mr. Gregory Teo @ Mikhail teaching Bio in SMSA? LOL!
Then, we were listened to a 'short' presentation about i-centre, which lasts for about 1hr. It was interesting, as Dewi was also talking about her experience about working as a waitress, working in the bank, before working for i-centre & there was a part of the slideshow that gives 'info terbalik' that was corrected by the Centre Manager. Won’t talk much about i-centre, otherwise readers would be put to sleep! Zzzzzzz!
i -centre was officially launched by
HRH Prince Mohamed Bolkiah on
26th March 2008; however it starts operation in 2007. i-centre is a project of BEDB & managed by KR Consulting, a commercial arm of NUS. It was led by a Centre Director & assisted by a Manager. There are 5 division in i-centre, namely Incubation, Marketing & PR, Facility, Administration, IT Support and surprisingly staffed by only 1 in each dept! Presently, there are 16 incubatees in i-centre. i-centre organised workshops under the brandname
THiNK BiG. Think you have an idea bout IT, why not join the Biz Plan competition? Hard cold cash of 20k awaits the winner.
Keeran Jannings(Expansys Technologies), who got 2nd place in the
THINK BIG biz plan winner with the product
YouGotSnapped. It’s a Facebook application.
He was also voted as the 2nd cutest guy in Brunei, as voted by readers of RanoAdidas.com in a web poll.
In the near future, i-centre hopes to have a mini-Silicon Valley ala Brunei, with the building of Anggerek Desa Technology Park next door. At i-centre, they work as a team & they play hard as well as work hard. Some of the fun activities that they have are trips to Silicon Valley, Movies nites, Breakfast Club every fortnight. Lastly, we were explained about the misconception about i-centre:
• i-centre is not an EYE clinic as many thought
• i-centre is not the same as AiTi or vice-versa, jauhnya beza
Lastly, before the presentation ended, there was a quiz session with 5 prizes sponsored by incubatees (Alif & BAG). I was lucky to win one of the prize, a notepad with a pen sponsored by Alif &
Mr. Photoshop Mizi was lucky to win 2 prizes, the Alif sponsored gifts & another by BAG Network. Before we were brought for a tour, Miss Tan presented a memento from SMSA to i-centre.
Green & Blue Floor
Then, we were brought on a tour of the 2nd and 3rd floor, better known as Green & Blue floor. Security were tight here as to enter need access card. We were shown brought to Mimit room, one of i-centre incubatees. Mimit had a product known as
V-Trak, which is a GPS tracking software build for G4S. Now, with this you can track whereabouts are your 'anak dara','anak teruna', boyfriends, girlfriends, husband, wife, etc. A small device needs to be placed in the car, but it costs about 1k. This is useful for those always go to Miri, if your car kena curi, you can track your car & immobilise it. The boss also revealed that they are working to get their own virtual map licensed by Google, so if they made it, then they will be the 1st Bruneian company to work with Google.
Lastly, we were brought to the ground floor to show us i-centre security system build by John Harith Computer. It was based on face detection and access-card scanning. The funny thing here was Mr. John Lee, one of the owners of John Harith Computer arrived and he met Harith SMSA his partner, Harith replied its partnership. After that, it’s candid moments & says cheese!
@ The Mall
After that off to The Mall for lunch. We spend around 1.5hr at The Mall before departing to our next destination, DST HQ. At The Mall, after lunch, I met Zaim and so me, Eric, Zaim & Harith wandered around The Mall (looking at stuffs at Apple Store, I want a iPod Touch any1 wanna give me, walk to the 'kedai komunis' to buy CDs, etc). Before I met them, I wandered around The Mall myself trying to find Flesh-IMP store, a Singapore brand which has just entered Brunei market. OMG, so lawa the T-shirts but the price is also 'lawa'! Before we were about to depart to DST, we were having picture time & to our surprise 2 Spaniards said they are from Spanish TV & asked us to say a few words for the camera. Ola is one of it, another I can’t remember! Then, Miss Tan said
'oh oh those students have been hooked by the orang putih', as most of us were already in the bus except a few.
At DST HQ
We arrived at
DST at around 1.50 pm. While waiting for the person-in-charge, we wandered around the building lobby & snapping pictures of things on display cabinets: mobile phones, cable TV goodies (wonder why we subscribers don’t get any?), etc. After waiting for like 30 min., we went for a short presentation on
DST in the auditorium on
tingkat 1.5. (Yes, no typo error). How do we get upstairs, using staircase, not normal staircase, but yg ada hole in between each steps. ‘Takut ku eh’! The presentation was done by Pengiran Haji Zahari, one of the Corporate Communications Dept officers. He explained about the organisation structure, companies under
DST, CSR activities by
DST, etc.
DST Carnival
He also revealed that on the 5th & 6th December, they are going to held
DST Group Carnival there. Many fun activities would be available & not forgetting prizes to be won. In addition, personalities from
Radio Era &
Astro Ria would also be present. Last yr, they held it & I was present, it was so packed. Plus, there was really cheap bundles on
Go! Broadband modem+laptop+prepaid packages. My dad scolded me for so eager to buy earlier the laptop, as when I bought from DST in August 2008, it was 1199, in the carnival it was 999. So if I buy in the carnival I would save lots since my dad paid 300 for modem, 30 for the Prepaid SIM card and lastly 1199 for a Dell XPS=1529,
SAVE 530! OMG! This year, I have no idea what promo they will offer, but I should be as good as last years. Right, enough of free promo for DST.
12th Floor Phobia!
Before, the presentation ended we were presented gift bag containing water bottle, and some lucky ones got extra stuff such as a mug or a planner. Miss Tan also presented a memento to DST. Then, it was off to 12th floor for a little sightseeing.
‘Laju eh lift ani’ was one of the expressions said by some of them. However, the officer said
‘Dulu lagi laju, masani inda’. I think they slow it down because of something which happens years ago, wont talk much about it. Ada yg cakap
‘Siuk ni buat prom di 12th floor’, oh IDK but for yg gayat aka claustrophobia payah kan enjoy. The view from the 12th floor was amazing, we can see
‘Green Building’(hutan), Masjid Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien, JIS, the sea, MOF building, Bukit Shahbandar, etc. We had our group photo here! Then, it’s off to 11th floor @ DSTCare 151.
DSTCare 151 @ 11th floor
If you are a DST subscriber, you would call this number when you complen pasal nada line, line kena block, nada servis, speed lagging, etc. There are 12 operators at max who handles up to 60,000 calls/month. DSTCare 151 receives an average of
120,000 calls/month of which 50% would be handled by IVR(interactive voice response) without going thru operators. Here, the operators practice 3C (Courteous, Commitment, and Courage), is it? They have a mirror in front of them, and they are required to smile when answering calls. It sounds silly right? And they also got Astro equipped TV to entertain them & to check on the signals quality. Bah, siapa kan apply jadi operator?
Blok Under Renovation
After 11th floor tour, we visited another block there. It houses the
Kristal FM studio as well as Network Ops Centre. At the time of visit, DJ Dafy was the DJ. He was also an ex-SMSA years ago. He explained to us about the RCS which was capable to store 300,000 songs & the manager, Azmi said that they will be buying new RCS from Germany which will be able to store 3 billion songs. Unfortunately, for 3 girls who sat down on the chair were interviewed by DJ Dafy. They are Fuizana, Zafirah S & Nadeera. They conveyed their greetings & requested Bad Romance-Lady Gaga.
According to DJ Dafy in order to be a radio DJ, need 6-7 months training, since they are so many buttons to tekan. OMG, next time if I wanna be a DJ in 987 Singapore, kesian aku! After the visit to KFM studio, we had another group photo taken with DJ Dafy, Azmi & DJ Sasha (newbie on KFM). Then, we visited NOC, the place where so many Physics stuffs were explained & monitors the DST network. No cameras were allowed, due to confidentiality.
Makan ke Gym?
Before we ended our tour of DST, we were treated to a small jamuan in the cafeteria which was the same block as the gym. Then, balik to Belait!
Word of Thanks
I, as the Trip Coordinator wishes to thank 1st of all Miss Tan, who helped me with the financial matters & also searching for students to join the trip. Secondly, I would like to thank i-centre (esp. Dewi, Mimit boss) & DST (esp. Pg Haji Zahari, Encik Wahab, DJ Dafy, NOC officers) for accommodating us, explaining to us stuffs & for all the nice gifts & blanja makan. Lastly, I would like to thank all the students who have participated in the trip. I also would like to apologise to Zafirah S who gotta pusing balik to Seria as it was getting late, Mizi who gotta travel to Masjid Zainab.
MAAF YE! Thanks for those who have given me compliments too!
Lastly
Siapa yg inda ikut trip ani RUGI. What you RUGI: Hmm you gotta endure tutup karan in ¾ of Belait District for a short period of time, the magnificent views from 12th floor DST, the stories of i-centre, chance to be in Spanish TV. As Shely said because she didn’t go so she didn’t know what she have miss, yes I agree! As the title suggest Trip of Realities or Possibility?, last 2 year, I would say it is a trip of possibility as it may happen, yesterday I can say it’s a trip of reality because it really did happen. So do our life, it could either be reality or possibility. Now, I have completed A Level so the next possibility in life is to obtain straight A in A Level & enter NUS with a scholarship & maybe start as a part-time DJ next year @ 987 Singapore. Whether it will be a reality or not, is another matter? So, think about it!
Garra garra go! More stories in a couple of days & pictures of the trip would be uploaded later, since they are some technical problems (missing camera). Sorry for such a lengthy post, hope you enjoy it!
Next posting I’m gonna to continue to write about Possibility or Reality of Lives.
P.S. John Harith Computers Mr. John Lee & Harith SMSA haha, so what about Amici Restaurant, Mizi SMSA & Ciara the artist is the owner?
