Last Saturday evening was very interesting. I was invited by
NACES 2007 (National Chemical Engineering Symposium) committee to become a panel (and judge) in their
"Global Warming Challenge" Workshop. NACES 2007 is a national event for chemical engineering students in Malaysia which was hosted by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). The workshop is one of the program slotted inside the 3 day event. The students were divided into 4 sections which consists of Industry, Public, Government and NGO. Each section have 5 groups inside it brainstorming and presenting their ideas in providing solution for the global warming crisis. I became the panel for the industry section and evaluated student acting role from Petronas, BHP, Shell, Schlumberger and Exxon-Mobil. It's very interesting watching and learning from their presentation. Ideas like "
pressure swing adsorption", "
carbon capture storage (CCS)", "
hybrid car", "
biodiesel" and others were highlighted. It's really good seeing our new breed of junior chemical engineers working, discussing and presenting their ideas. At the end of their presentation, I commented and analyzed each groups performance before announcing the winner. It was not an easy pick. However, I finally chose Schlumberger to represent the industry section in the debating stage.
The debate session was really fun and I enjoyed watching it. Government representative, Mass Media, WWF from NGO and Schlumberger pointed out their stand and ways in overcoming the global warming challenges. As one of the judge for the debate session, I chose a group which had been slightly outstanding in all aspects. However, I don't know the actual winner. Anyone of you who attended NACES 2007 know? Maybe you can let me know in the comment area.
On overall I can't really measure the success of NACES 2007 because I only attended the 3-4 hours workshop. However, from that fraction of time spent, I observed and noticed massive room for improvements. To next years' host/committee, I hope they can manage and improve the standard of NACES.
Ops....don't forget to check out the new Chemical-Engineering-Forum.com.