I'd like to share my experience attending the Brunei Postgraduate Symposium, held last Saturday at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London. In short, it was really good and worth going to!
This was the 2nd time the symposium has been held, with the inaugural event being last year. There were 3 keynote speakers, namely:
1) Hj Rozan DP Hj Md Yunos, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Development,
2) Dr Hj Omar Hj Khalid, Vice-Chancellor, ITB; and
3) Prof Tong Chee Kiong, Special Academic Advisor, ITB.
There were two panels, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, namely: the National Identity and Education Panel, as well as the Environmental, Health and Law Panel. In each panel there were about half a dozen speakers, Bruneians, coming not only from the UK but as far as Brunei and Australia. They each presented a paper detailing their research and postgraduate study. It was interesting, not only to see and hear about their work, but also how their work will relate to the development and benefit of Brunei in the future.
Also of particular interest were the three keynote speakers. They each gave a talk revolving around the theme of the symposium: "Sustainability & Growth: Securing our nation's future". I was especially intrigued by Prof Tong, who detailed the current new vision for UBD as a university not only focused on the educational needs of the Bruneian population, but also as a university known for its cutting-edge research, insyaAllah.
The day was quite an exhausting one as one had to concentrate for pretty much the whole time from morning listening to people speak, but it was definitely a rewarding one. I hope to be there again next year!
Ayyub
President
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