TECH Dome Penang, always at the forefront of inspiring children and students to become future technologists, will be holding a Chinese New Year workshop at its premises in Komtar on Feb 1 for underprivileged pupils.
Its chief executive officer Khoo Boo Wooi said they normally organise four festive STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) activities in a year during Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali and Christmas.
“For this year’s Chinese New Year event, we target 240 primary school pupils for a project involving pinball during the workshop.
“We want to bring in the underprivileged students and celebrate together with a STEM element. We hope to spark STEM interest in them when they are small,” Khoo said.
Besides the festive activities, Tech Dome has also set a few other targets, including reaching out to rural schools and imparting STEM knowledge to teachers.
Khoo said from the experience last year, Tech Dome noticed that some of the rural students do not have an interest in STEM or lack confidence.
One rural school initially did not want to participate in a STEM programme run by Tech Dome, worried that it would not be able to cope because it did not have the experience. But after some persuasion, it agreed after being convinced that some engineers would be sent to help train its pupils.
Next, the school did not want the pupils to take part in a competition for fear of losing but Khoo managed to talk them out of it.
“The school believed that its pupils would surely lose in the competition. But it ended with the school finishing in second place.
“Children have the potential, whether we discover them or not.
“So, this year, we want to do small-scale competitions and duplicate them in many places in the district. We want to let them have the chance to be involved in STEM and competitions so that they have the chance to win to build their confidence,” Khoo said.
He also said that Tech Dome Penang would also be working with the state Education Department because the centre wants to help the teachers as well.
He said some teachers might not have the skills to teach the students and Tech Dome wants to train the teachers to master the skills so that they have the confidence to pass down the knowledge to the students.
“The state lacks talents in STEM. We need to build the pipelines. This is one of Tech Dome’s main responsibilities,” Khoo said.
Khoo visited the Buletin Mutiara office today, together with marketing manager Oun Sui Leng, to present a token of appreciation to Buletin Mutiara, who was represented by the state Communications Division director and Chief Minister’s press secretary Yap Lee Ying. They also wished the staff members a Happy Chinese New Year.
“We did a lot of events last year and Buletin Mutiara has been one of our most supportive media friends.
“Through this, Penangites learn what Tech Dome is doing. We foster a closer relationship with the public so that they can benefit from our programmes,” Khoo said.
Oun chipped in: “We hardly advertise (our programmes) due to budget constraints. And we are appreciative of the help and publicity given by Buletin Mutiara.”
Courtyard by Marriott Penang also visited Buletin Mutiara today as CNY is fast approaching. CNY falls on Jan 22 this year.
Its director of sales and marketing Kenny Lee presented some CNY goodies to Yap, who received them on behalf of Buletin Mutiara. Lee was accompanied by the hotel’s marketing communications manager Ketty Ooi and marketing communications & graphic coordinator Ng Rae Yin.
“This is the first time that I am visiting Buletin Mutiara and getting to know about the state government’s official media and its publication,” said Lee, who hails from Kuching, Sarawak.
“Being in the hotel line, we are expecting more tourists to visit Penang. Tourism has rebounded since the reopening of the Malaysian borders in April last year. With more tourists expected to come to Penang, especially with China now opening its borders, our new year wish is that this will benefit all the hotels in the state.”
Story by K.H. Ong
Pix by Darwina Mohd Daud and Adleena Rahayu Ahmad Radzi