My Wake Up Call. My Random Thoughts

I am extremely lucky to went through a few medical crisis and yet still have the chance to talk about it. Some of the hard earned awards and decorations include more than FOUR (4) weeks of intensive care unit (ICU) experience in THREE (3) different hospitals, TWO (2) ambulance rides and ONE (1) pheochromocytomas surgery to remove my a tumour sized 10cm x 9cm x 8cm. These near death incidents taught me to have a new perspective about life, work, family and friends.

In term of my career, I am also extremely lucky to have great opportunities working with prestigious companies as GIS User (first 4 years of my career), GIS System Integrator (next 10 years of my career) & GIS Software Distributor (current, since 5 years ago). I have the privilege to work with excellent talented people from all over the world in planning, designing, implementing, and managing enterprise GIS projects in Europe, US & Asia.

This is not a technical blog for sharing tips and tricks. My random thoughts is meant for everyone that would like to gain more understanding about the advantage and potential of applying geographic insight or location analytic in help making the right decision. Hence all postings are written in plain and simple language using layman terminology and analogies.

I am hopeful the sharing will form part of my journey to promote more geographic thinking in everything we do. I look forward to hear your feedback. Do write in to share your thoughts and opinions with me.

Geo-Mentor Lai Chee Siew has a lot of affection with education and non-profit organizations (NPO) in Malaysia. He would like to volunteer his time to promote applying geography in their organizations.

Geo-Mentors in Malaysia

I first came across Geographical Information System (GIS) during my early day in University Technology of Malaysia (UTM). I am fortunate to have been a student of late Prof. Dr. Ahris Yaakup from Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Built Environment (FAB). The late Prof. Dr. Ahris is among the pioneer GIS lecturer in Malaysia and always passionate to share his knowledge in GIS with his students.

In addition to the late Prof. Dr. Ahris, I am lucky to have another mentor – Mr. Yong Sun Yong (my senior in Town Planning) as my guiding star during my student days in UTM. Both of them take great efforts to show me the fascinating world of GIS, answer my curiosities about what’s possible and recommend reading materials that helped strengthen my understanding about this technology.

My heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to these great gentlemen. I wouldn’t able be where I am today without the support and guidance I got from these geo-mentors.

We definitely need more geo-mentor to promote GIS literacy to our younger generation and for betterment of our society. I am ready to make steps to push this geo-mentor initiative across Malaysia, are you with me?

To both my geo-mentors, thanks for everything and I will continue to make you proud.