PhD Movie!

This is a movie that every grad student to-be needs to watch. The trailer itself brings back so many oh so familiar memories. I personally think that grad school was a truly enriching experience for me. It has changed me in so many subtle ways.

Research Fellowship

I’ve just received the letter of appointment for the position of a Research Fellow to a major research and development institution in Malaysia. The institution has more than 500 researchers on staff and is a well recognised organisation in Malaysia.

Reading about Research Fellows, I had originally thought that it was just like a post-doctoral position – i.e. just a regular part of research. I didn’t realise that it was any big deal until I realised that the appointment letter was signed by the CEO of the organisation.

The appointment is time limited and scope limited, and I’ll be paid a monthly allowance for all my troubles.

As an immediate benefit, I will be able to list this as an addition to my CV. However, in the bigger picture, I do not know where this appointment will lead me and if it will open more doors. At the very least, I hope to have some fun playing around with them toys.

I do hope that I would be able to help them achieve their objectives within the time and scope that I am given. I will definitely try my best to do a good job at this. I hope that they will also find me a useful addition to their team.

I’m looking forward to having some fun.

Legal Pivot

Is there a way to turn the CPB2011 around so that it is more inclusive and free rather and exclusive and non-free? Kinda like how the FLOSS movement uses strong copyright law to enforce freedoms instead of restrict it.

Bosses under #CPB2011

As it stands at the moment, there is no requirement for the bosses of IT companies to be registered computing professionals (RCP) themselves. This is contrary to the requirement for other professionals such as engineers and lawyers, who must be registered themselves. According to the IEM president:

He also claimed engineering decisions could be compromised if the business owner had undue influence in what engineers should or should not do.

There is some truth in this. If the boss of the company is a non-RCP, he does not shoulder the same duty of care and responsibility as his RCP employees. The boss could exercise his influence over his employee to get his RCP guys to do something unprofessional such as compromised solutions.

If caught, the RCP can have his registration revoked, his license to practice taken away, fined and even jailed. The RCP then pays the ultimate price and can no longer practice. Heck, the boss even has valid reasons to fire the RCP as he has lost his license.

According to the CPB2011 S.15(4), the registered computing service providers (RCSP) are dependent on:

(4) A Registered Computing Services Provider may only provide Computing Services in the disciplines or specialisations of Computing where the personnel is/are Registered Computing Professionals is shown in the Register under subsection 12(2).

The license of the RCSP are tied to having the qualified RCP employees. The boss of the company gets off scot free and is able to hire another new RCP to replace the old RCP that is no longer qualified to practice. They can even continue to provide unprofessional services.

Even if the company is black-listed, all the boss needs to do is to shut it down and open up a new entity as the quality of the business service is not tied to him at all. All he needs to do is to hire new RCP who are clean and clear by the board.

However, if the CPB2011 requires that all IT companies be owned by RCPs themselves, this can be closely regulated. If unprofessional acts happen, the staff and boss can be stripped of their RCP licenses and the boss can no longer work in the IT industry, much less own an IT company.

How’s that for consideration?

If we’re going to require RCPs for CNII, let’s make it a requirement that the bosses of RCSP must be RCP themselves. Otherwise, bad things can happen and the poor RCP employee will get screwed over thoroughly.

CPB2011 and ECUK

I was thinking about the CPB2011 and how this compares to the Engineering Council, UK registrations. The ECUK awards a number of professional registrations including the following:

  • Chartered Engineer (CEng)
  • Incorporated Engineer (IEng)
  • Engineering Technician (EngTech)
  • Information and Communications Technology Technician (ICTTech)

The two technician registrations are similar to the Registered Computing Practicioner category. The ICTTech allows someone without a degree to register, particularly if they have ICT relevant vendor qualifications, such as Cisco, Microsoft or Nortel, plus relevant ICT work experience.

The typical registration requirement for the IEng is a Bachelors degree plus relevant work experience while the CEng requires a Masters degree or equivalent work experience. This is similar to the Registered Computing Professionals category. In fact, the requirements for CEng is higher than the RCP as it typically requires a Masters and 5-years experience.

Where the two differ is that the ECUK recognises non-academic qualities such that a person without a degree can ultimately register as a CEng through a non-direct route by first registering as a Technician and upgrading their registrations through their career progression.

Our law-makers need to appreciate that not everyone is good with exams.

Over-reaction to CPB2011

Personally, I think that there has been an over-reaction to the proposed Computer Professionals Bill. Most IT guys tend to think that this spells doom and it’s the end of their livelihoods as they know it. I don’t think so because of Section 2 of the bill, which limits the bill.

IT guys can still offer their services and just need to get registered as a Computer Professional if they wish to provide IT services to certain critical national infrastructure. I don’t see why this is a problem as this is a similar requirement for most other professions.

As someone in the IT industry myself, I’ve also often fallen into this trap rather quickly. However, as a law student, I have learned a little about how to read the law and I think that the fear is misplaced. The bill reads like a carbon-copy of statutes regulating other professions.

For engineers, we’re also regulated by statute and any engineer who wants to submit documents for regulatory approval needs to be a Registered Professional Engineer (PE). This doesn’t stop other engineers from making a nice living off providing engineering services that do not require regulatory approval, particularly in the electronics engineering field, which is one of our country’s largest exports.

Similarly, the CPB2011 will unlikely mean the end of the world for IT professionals. It just means that there is now another bar to cross before one can provide IT services to the government.

Like I mentioned in a G+ discussion, the devil’s in the details. This Act can either stifle the growth of the IT industry or promote it into a front-line profession and separate the wheat from the chaff. This is highly dependent on how one gets to register as a computer professional.

This is where I think that there is room for contention. If the bill requires a person to have a Computer Science (CS) degree as a basic requirement, the bill is flawed. There are literally thousands of engineers working in the IT field – largely electronics engineers (EE). It is quite common to group EE and CS together in a single faculty.

Also, there are lots of IT people who have risen through experiential work and not necessarily academic qualifications. These people should also have the room to register as a professional and not be side-lined just because they lack a CS degree. There needs to be room for these people to prove their competence maybe through other recognised certifications such as CISSP, CCNA, etc.

Personally, I’m for the registration in principle but the devil’s in the details.

It needs to be done properly.

I’ll be writing a bit more on this – and an analysis – on my law blog soon. Here it is.

PS: I hope that this doesn’t mean that I’d need to be registered with two boards, maintain two sets of CPDs and pay two separate Corporate Membership fees?

PPS: Does this mean that this bill would eliminate the random third-party contractors installing communications equipment for TM in our homes? If it does, I would consider it a win as I would not have had to deal with the kind of idiot that came to install Unifi at my office, which broke after 2 hours.