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Posted by: HiMYSYeD on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 05:33 PM EST (823 Reads)
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By Ewan Newmark
NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- Every summer thousands of MBA and JD candidates flock to Wall Street and consulting firms for a taste of the real world in summer associate programs.
Ask a summer associate what he is looking to get out of his experience and odds are you will get one of the following: “Always wanted to try living in New York City.” “Looking to learn what investment banking is all about.” “Really wanted to experience the [firm’s name] culture.” “I’m really an entrepreneur. Needed money to pay down my tuition.”
These are all wrong answers. Perhaps truthful, but wrong. There is only one thing you should want out of a summer associate program–a job offer. The rest is just noise.
I learned this lesson years ago–the hard way.
The year was 1990. The U.S. economy was in a deep funk. It was my first year at Harvard Business School. I wanted to avoid a summer finance job, but assumed that with Goldman Sachs on my resume, I would have my pick of summer consulting jobs. Wrong assumption.
My interview with Bain Consulting, for example, was a disaster. I think I’m pretty clever, and I am rarely at a loss for words. However, this fellow from Bain was even more clever. Seeing my resume chock-a-block with experiences in the Soviet Union, he threw me an interview knuckleball: How would I re-organize the Soviet oil industry?
Dumbstruck. I knew nothing of the oil industry, much less the Soviet one. I didn’t speak for a full minute–and when I did, it was gibberish. Any career at Bain was now gone.
I received one real offer for the summer–the Boston office of McKinsey & Co.
That summer I was put on a team consulting for American Tourister, a faltering Rhode Island luggage company. On my first client visit, my cheap Chevy rental broke down a few miles north of Providence. I finally showed up late, covered in grass from the highway shoulder and reeking of gasoline.
The client didn’t mind–and for the rest of that summer, the client and I got along very well. The work was pretty straightforward–doing inventory and cost accounting studies.
It was actually my boss at McKinsey who had issues with me. And deservedly so. I was an arrogant know-it-all who thought the summer job was about getting a taste of consulting and proving myself to the client. Wrong.
The summer job was about fitting into McKinsey, learning its culture and ways of doing business. My boss was my real client. And why would she give me an offer when I so frequently reminded her of my genius and her shortcomings?
By mid-August it was job offer time and I was nervous. Here is where the rubber hit the road.
No job offer meant no coasting my second year of business school. No job in Boston, where my fiancée wanted to settle. No job in the worst New England economy since the Great Depression.
But wait, you might say, what if you learned you didn’t want to go into consulting?
That doesn’t matter. It still is imperative to get the offer. There is no downside to getting it. It shows other employers you are a hot property. Try explaining to a new employer why you didn’t get it.
We had a sit down. I apologized and groveled.
My boss left me hanging. Told me to take a couple of days to think about my commitment to McKinsey. So I worried for a couple of days more.
When we sat down again, I groveled and apologized some more. Then I promised that I had learned my lesson and would be a faithful servant of McKinsey come next year. And that is how I got my job offer.
Since then, I have given the same advice to dozens of summer associates at Goldman Sachs and UBS: Always work hard, be humble, be helpful and be happy. If asked, always go drinking, dining and dancing. The usual clichés. But I add a couple of other well-learned points:
If wrong, apologize and grovel. Above all, get the offer.
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Posted by: HiMYSYeD on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 12:15 PM EST (601 Reads)
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By Robert X. Cringely
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA -- Last week's column on education clearly struck a vein. Whenever reader comments go over 200 I know I've hit upon something that probably deserves a book, that is assuming people actually read books. Well of course they do, as the Harry Potter series proves over and over. But Harry Potter isn't just a book, it is an immersive virtual reality that kids relate to as an even better video game, if a low tech one. And that leads us to this week's follow-on to last week's teaser: so what do we DO about our kids, our schools, and a seemingly inexorable generation change that still isn't clearly good OR bad, just different?
I grew up in the time warp that was Wayne County, Ohio, in the 1950s. Back then at least the majority of the population of Wayne County was Amish, which is to say they didn't go to public school (or school at all after age 14), didn't drive cars or use electricity except to keep the dairy milk cool, didn't vote, bought as little as possible, sold as much as possible, and barely paid taxes. Wayne County was NOT the middle of nowhere, however, since Rubbermaid was headquartered there as was the Wooster Brush Company (world's largest maker of paint brushes), and Smucker's jams and jellies were just across the Holmes County line where there, too, the Amish were the silent majority.
Very little has changed since I was a kid. As my friend Henry from down the road in Mansfield, Ohio, points out, the Amish have been on this same "new" educational path forever. Their ability to produce nearly 100 percent productive citizens (and very nice furniture) for about fifty bucks per student per year is especially galling to those government schools that spend $16K and turn out a lot of slackers.
Most people would see the Amish as an anomaly, but I don't. I see the Amish as a particularly successful minority that picks and chooses how it will participate in modern life. We see a lot of this, especially internationally. Yes, the Amish have no army, but then neither do, in practical terms, many countries including some of our old enemies. The Amish do not suffer from avoiding public schools OR McDonalds. They live the life they have chosen to create.
Let's consider for a moment what many readers will find to be a politically incorrect position: because of cheap computers and the Internet, the ability to solve problems ad hoc has become more efficient than teaching kids about problems and issues that will never face them. As a result, the United States has let itself become less competitive by putting so much money into a product (a kid) making both its cost and its ability globally uncompetitive. So, instead of putting more effort into making globally competitive products, we put more effort into blaming those who are smarter at using technology that was mostly invented here.
If the idea is to give everyone a nice comfortable pension, if the same money invested each year in a typical kid's education was instead invested in an IRA, it would give that kid a very comfortable living upon reaching age 65.
Well this is a terrible position to take, don't you think? It treats our children like capital goods and denies them any ability to excel, dooming them to mediocrity.
Really?
My Mom (Mrs. Cringely to you) once said, "I may not have been the best mother, but at least I got all my kids through school."
"No you didn't," I replied (this is a true story, by the way). "We would have made it through school with or without you." And we would have.
Not wanting to put too much of a Libertarian spin on it, because I am certainly not a Libertarian, this is a fact that is missed by so many people. There will always be achievers, whether they go to public schools, private schools, home schools, magnet schools, charter schools, or no schools at all. While it is fine for society to create opportunities for advancement, what's more important is removing BARRIERS to advancement. And for the most part that's not what we are about.
What we tend to be about as a society is building power structures and most of those power structures, including schools and governments, are decidedly reactive. This is not all bad. After all, the poster child for educational and government proactivity in the 20th century may have been the Taliban in Afghanistan.
There will always be governments willing to take our money and then deciding to spend some of it in ways we wouldn't approve. That's probably an inevitable social cost of avoiding anarchy. But the idea that government has a lot of power to MAKE our kids become one way or another is only true to a very limited extent.
Our society will continue to create great artists, writers, scientists and engineers because people will be internally driven to greatness in all those fields. How many Picassos do you need in a society? How many Frank Lloyd Wrights? How many Einsteins? How many Bechtolscheims, Knuths, and Brins?
When high tech executives claim that we don't have enough visas for importing programmers from Asia, they are looking for talent by the ton, not by the neuron, yet neurons are what really matter in these things. So they are wrong, too.
Yes, it is important to go to MIT and, along with losing your pants in the Charles River, make social and professional connections that will help you later in life. But how do we measure the strength or efficacy of those connections? If it is in terms of monetary success, as we tend to measure things, then we'd be better off going to some big state school in the Midwest, because more top executives -- more top earners -- come from those schools than from MIT. If we measure success in terms of patents or awards or endowed professorships, there are schools that rate higher than MIT, too.
The fact is that going to MIT can be a life-changing experience and worth any price, but then so can be going to Champaign-Urbana or San Jose State. It's what you do with it.
In my book Accidental Empires I wrote about young Bob Metcalfe who, as an MIT undergraduate, was intimidated by a fraternity brother who could complete the entire New York Times crossword puzzle during breakfast without having to look up a word or linger over his coffee. He was master of his domain. Bob, who went on to invent Ethernet, found 3Com, and is now a rabid VC, was no slouch, either, but he was not the master of any domain, which actually came to be his strength. Because he wasn't the best and the brightest (while still being very bright), Bob had to learn how to work with people and ultimately had to create his own domain that he could master. Sometimes that's the way it is.
The key to last week's column and this one is generational change: it is happening and can't be avoided. The next generations will use technology even more than we do and they'll use it differently. This difference will form a feedback loop that will in turn alter the very structure of our society and its institutions. It may be no better to learn to write on a computer or by firelight on the back of a shovel as Abraham Lincoln was said to have done, but I'll stake what little reputation I still have on the fact that not many people in the future will be taking the shovel route.
As our wealth becomes less physical and more virtual, so will its disposition. Twenty years from now, when my more successful peers are getting old and starting to die, will they be putting their names on university libraries? Will there even BE university libraries then, I mean new ones? Google or Microsoft or Yahoo will have put all the books on disk and all the disks will be networked together and accessible from my house or yours. Then the library becomes, at best, a study hall. And since it is quieter to study at my house and the food is cheaper, too, maybe the library becomes just a place to hang out. This transition will not happen overnight, but it will happen, and then who will give millions to build new libraries? Nobody.
The fact is that we can't really predict with true accuracy what changes will happen in our society over the next 20-30 years, but we can make a good guess that technology will be involved with many of them. Yet there will always be a place for good old common sense.
A doctor in my town back in Ohio had built for himself a grand house, a real mansion, with a huge entrance hall and a sweeping staircase that floated down from the second floor to the first like some set from Gone With the Wind. The house was all built to the highest level of quality by the best craftsmen, only nobody in town (or even out of town) could build the sweeping banister for that grand staircase. It had to be laminated in a single piece of mahogany that somehow matched the curve of the staircase, a curve that had been drawn more by art than science. Nobody could build it.
So they called in the local Amish furniture maker. He came with his son and they spent a couple hours measuring with a ruler and a yardstick then went away and two weeks later returned with the completed banister on the back of their horse-drawn wagon. It slipped into place as if built on some CAD/CAM system, perfect in every way. How did they do it?
They took their measurements back to the farm and spent two days building in the barn a rough-hewn replica of the entire staircase, then laminated the rail in place. Of course it fit and without an algorithm in sight.
Note: On the last day of elementary school here in Toronto, the following chant could be heard:
'No more teachers, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks, when the the teacher rings the bell, drop your books and run like hel.'
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Posted by: HiMYSYeD on Monday, March 24, 2008 - 12:30 PM EST (597 Reads)
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By ROBERT X. CRINGELY
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA -- There is a technology war coming. Actually it is already here but most of us haven't yet notice. It is a war not about technology but because of technology, a war over how we as a culture embrace technology. It is a war that threatens venerable institutions and, to a certain extent, threatens what many people think of as their very way of life. It is a war that will ultimately and inevitably change us all, no going back. The early battles are being fought in our schools. And I already know who the winners will be.
This is a war over how we as a culture and a society respond to Moore's Law.
The real power of Moore's Law lies in what the lady at the bank called "the miracle of compound interest," which has allowed personal computers to increase in performance a millionfold over the past 30 years. There's a similar, if slower, effect that governs the rate at which individuals are empowered by the technology they use. Called Cringely's Nth Law of Computing (because I have forgotten for the moment what law I am up to, whether it is five or six), it says that waves of technological innovation take approximately 30 years - one human generation - to be completely absorbed by our culture. That's 30 years to become an overnight sensation, 30 years to finally settle into the form most useful to society, 30 years to change the game.
The key word here is "empowerment." Technologies allow us to overcome limitations of time, distance, and physical capability, but they only empower us when they can be gracefully used by large, productive segments of our society. The telephone was empowering when we all finally got it. Now it is the Internet and digital communications.
Let's be clear about what we're measuring here. It has very little to do with specific technologies and everything to do with our adaptation to technology as a culture. What Cringely's Nth Law of Computing predicts is our rate of adaptation to technological life. This happens not at the rate technologies are developed but at the rate we are capable of broadly absorbing them. We've seen this sort of thing before, of course. I used to work in user interface design and noticed long ago that it took about a decade for every new interface standard to be absorbed by technical culture. This dates back a lot longer than most of us might guess, all the way back to microfilm readers in the 1960s. Older engineers couldn't stand reading microfilm while younger engineers found it effortless. Same for microfiche, which followed microfilm. The same effect could be found in typing: older people - mainly men - wouldn't adapt to it, but those who used a typewriter in high school or college quickly learned they could not live without it. Ditto for computers, first with batch processing, then time-sharing terminals, then command-line PCs, then graphical user interfaces, and now emerging mobile platforms. Each new technology is difficult for the older generation and easy for the younger, which explains why I am a PC master but a texting idiot. I'm just too damned old.
Here, buried in my sixth paragraph, is the most important nugget: we've reached the point in our (disparate) cultural adaptation to computing and communication technology that the younger technical generations are so empowered they are impatient and ready to jettison institutions most of the rest of us tend to think of as essential, central, even immortal. They are ready to dump our schools.
I came to this conclusion recently while attending Brainstorm 2008, a delightful conference for computer people in K-12 schools throughout Wisconsin. They didn't hold breakout sessions on technology battles or tactics, but the idea was in the air. These people were under siege.
I started writing educational software in 1978. The role of instructional technology has changed since then from a gimmick to a novelty to an effort to an essential component of any curriculum. Kids can't go to school today without working on computers. But having said that, in the last five years more and more technical resources have been turned to how to keep technology OUT of our schools. Keeping kids from instant messaging, then text messaging or using their phones in class is a big issue as is how to minimize plagiarism from the Internet. These defensive measures are based on the idea that unbound use of these communication and information technologies is bad, that it keeps students from learning what they must, and hurts their ability to later succeed as adults.
But does it?
These are kids who have never known life without personal computers and cell phones. But far more important, there is emerging a class of students whose PARENTS have never known life without personal computers and cell phones. The Big Kahuna in educational discipline isn't the school, it is the parent. Ward Cleaver rules. But what if Ward puts down his pipe and starts texting? Well he has.
Andy Hertzfeld said Google is the best tool for an aging programmer because it remembers when we cannot. Dave Winer, back in 1996, came to the conclusion that it was better to bookmark information than to cut and paste it. I'm sure today Dave wouldn't bother with the bookmark and would simply search from scratch to get the most relevant result. Both men point to the idea that we're moving from a knowledge economy to a search economy, from a kingdom of static values to those that are dynamic. Education still seems to define knowing as more important than being able to find, yet which do you do more of in your work? And what's wrong with crimping a paragraph here or there from Cringely if it shows you understand the topic?
This is, of course, a huge threat to the education establishment, which tends to have a very deterministic view of how knowledge and accomplishment are obtained - a view that doesn't work well in the search economy. At the same time K-12 educators are being pulled back by No Child Left Behind, they are being pulled forward (they probably see it as pulled askew) by kids abetted by their high-tech Generation Y (yes, we're getting well into Y) parents who are using their Ward Cleaver power not to maintain the status quo but to challenge it.
This is an unstable system. Homeschooling, charter schools, these things didn't even exist when I was a kid, but they are everywhere now. There's only one thing missing to keep the whole system from falling apart - ISO certification.
I've written about this for years and nobody ever paid attention, but ISO certification is what destroyed the U.S. manufacturing economy. With ISO 9000 there was suddenly a way to claim with some justification that a factory in Malaysia was precisely comparable to an IBM plant on the Hudson. Prior to then it was all based on reputation, not statistics. And now that IBM plant is gone.
Well reputation still holds in education, though its grip is weakening. I know kids from good families who left high school early with a GED because they were bored or wanted to enter college early. Maybe college is next.
MIT threw videos of all its lecture courses - ALL its lecture courses - up on the web for anyone to watch for free. This was precisely comparable to SGI (remember them?) licensing OpenGL to Microsoft. What is it, then, that makes an MIT education worth $34,986? Is it the seminars that aren't on the web? Faculty guidance? Research experience? Getting drunk and falling in the Charles River without your pants? Right now it is all those things plus a dimensionless concept of educational quality, which might well go out the window if some venture capitalist with too much money decides to fund an ISO certification process not for schools but for students.
The University of Phoenix is supposedly preparing a complete middle and high school online curriculum available anywhere in the world. I live in Charleston, SC where the public schools are atrocious despite spending an average of $16,000 per student each year. Why shouldn't I keep my kids at home and online, demanding that the city pay for it?
Because that's not the way we do it, that's why.
Well times are changing.
Steve Jobs rejects the idea of Apple making or distributing e-books because he says people don't read books. He's right, book readers are older. Young readers graze. They search. Look how they watch TV. Steve didn't say people are stupid or we're all going to Hell in a handbasket. He just said we don't read books.
Technology is beginning to assail the underlying concepts of our educational system - a system that's huge and rich and so far fairly immune to economic influence. But the support structure for those hallowed and not so hallowed halls has always been parents willing to pay tuition and alumni willing to give money, both of which are likely to change over a generation for reasons I've just spent 1469 words explaining. We are nearing the time when paying dues and embracing proxies for quality may give way having the ability to know what kids really know, to verify what they can really do, not as 365th in their class at Stanford but as Channing Cringely, who just graduated from nowhere with the proven ability to design time machines.
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Posted by: HiMYSYeD on Monday, January 07, 2008 - 01:27 PM EST (903 Reads)
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BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, BRUNEI -- It was one year ago that His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam announced the establishment of a second university in the sultanate, in his 2007 New Year titah. The university was to be known as Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali or Unissa, that His Majesty hoped, would be a "landmark of Islamic glory in the country and also play a role in producing Muslim scholars and intellectuals needed by the nation".
On August 6, 2007, the university began its first academic year with the intake of 152 students for Bachelor and Master's degrees and PhD programme. After a year since its establishment, this young university has embarked upon its path towards its mission and vision and planted a firm foundation in the local educational scene. In an exclusive interview, the Deputy Minister of Education, Pengiran Dato Seri Setia Dr Hj Mohammad Pengiran Hj Abdul Rahman who is also the interim rector of the Islamic university, shared with The Brunei Times the achievements of the university for the past year.
Q: In early 2007, His Majesty the Sultan and Yang DiPertuan of Brunei Darussalam had announced the inauguration of a second university in Brunei Darussalam, to be known as Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali. After one year, can you explain the efforts that had been made and have they been successfully achieved by the university?
Answer: After a year since its inauguration, I can say Al-Hamdulillah that we had been able to overcome several difficulties, for example in successfully preparing the draft of the constitution for the university, acquiring financial allocations, renovating the interior parts of the Institut Pengajian Islam Sultan Haji Omar Ali Saifuddien's building (IPISHOAS) which is currently operating as a temporary building, and planning the construction of a new building, nearby the current facility to enable the university to operate for several more years before moving to the new campus.
The university's logo has also been approved and will be launched shortly. We have also been able to organise a dialogue with several stakeholders that had opened up our minds on many areas that can be explored. Courses have been organised for the lecturers regarding the best methods of teaching and learning. The management of the university as well as the Ministry of Education had coordinated several study visits to renowned universities in the Middle East - including University Al-Azhar in Cairo (Egypt), Canada, the US and the UK.
Last year several study visits were made to higher education institutions and important agencies in Malaysia, such as the International Islamic University of Malaysia (UIA), Islamic Science University of Malaysia (USIM), University of Malaya (UM), Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), Univerisit Sains Malaysia (USM), the National University of Malaysia (UKM), Syariah Judiciary Department Malaysia and the Malaysia Qualifications Agency (MQA). All of these gave a lot of input for the university's planning in the future.
Q: How about in the aspect of academics, plans and activities that Pengiran Dato wanted to carry out?
A: Currently, we have four faculties and three centres; (1) Faculty of Syariah and Law which offers Bachelor of Syariah (Fiqh wa Qada) and Bachelor of Syariah (Fiqh wa Usul), (2) Faculty of Usuluddin which offers Bachelor of Usuluddin (al-Tafsir wa al-Hadith) and Bachelor of Usuluddin (al-Aqidah wa al-Dakwah), (3) Faculty of Arabic Language and Islamic Civilisation, offering Bachelor of Arabic Language, (4) Faculty of Business and Management Sciences, offering Bachelor of Science Islamic Finance, (5) Centre for the Promotion of Knowledge and Languages, (6) Mazhab Shafi'i. Research Centre, (7) Research and Post-Graduate Studies Centre.
As there is a need for the nation's development, God Willing the university for the first time, would establish a Faculty of Laws, referring to the example of Faculty of Laws in UIA, Malaysia.
However, this new faculty would be different, suitable to the legislation system in Brunei, and at the same time taking into consideration the laws of Commonwealth and Asean.
The Attorney General Chamber would give its cooperation in the establishment of this faculty, which should be opened at par with the development in other countries, as we never had such faculty before. Therefore, the Faculty of Syariah and Law would be known as Faculty of Sariah and Judiciary, which is' appropriate with its functions. Programmes under this faculty would be offered during the new academic session in August this year.
In addition, the faculty would use English language as the medium of instruction, except those having to attend Arabic Language course.
In relation to that, the university is also currently evaluating thoroughly the possibility of offering ICT Programme and Islamic Management.
In introducing the Bachelor Degree programmes, at the same time, we have also developed a Master's Degree (MA) in Islamic Studies and Arabic Language, that is currently attended by more than 20 students, both local and international. I think this is a way forward that can strengthen the prestige and position of the university, in the aspect of scholarly improvement and to flourish research sectors.
Q: Any new university needs campaigns and information to attract the attention of locals as well as others. So, what efforts are being taken to promote Unissa so far? And what steps you plan to take in the future?
A: Our earliest step in promoting the university was by organising visits to several overseas universities, at the same time, studying the systems, journey and development of respective universities, studying their best practices, that can be used as examples.
God Willing, after the university is firm in its position, we will take the next step to sign Memorandum of Understanding with any suitable higher institution.
Meanwhile, inside the country so far, Al-Hamdulillah, the public has realised the existence of this university and the university's name has been mentioned quite regularly, which shows that they know about it. However, it is the responsibility of the university's management to double its efforts in promoting the image of Unissa, so that the public can approach and benefit from it.
Q: In your view, what can differentiate Unissa from other universities, Islamic or not, in the region or at the global level?
A: In my opinion, what actually differentiates the university from the rest is its vision and objectives to be achieved that is to develop an Islamic university based on the teachings of alQuran and al-Sunnah.
The other objective is to produce Ulama or Islamic scholars and intellectuals. We cannot deviate from this objective, because we realise that the number of true Islamic scholars is decreasing, whilst the number of Muslims is increasing in the region that need their services.
To generate the said Islamic scholars and intellectuals, Unissa plans to cooperate with University Al-Azhar and other universities in the Middle East, as well as several other western universities, in our efforts to improve religious' knowledge, Arabic Language and professional knowledge.
Q:What about your own vision towards this university?
A: This university is established with genuine objectives, that is to upgrade the level of Islamic scholarship and other general knowledge. I believe that in the future, Brunei Darussalam will become one of the favoured Islamic reference centres in the region.
For that reason, we have to strengthen the curriculum, Arabic and English, apart from our national language.
At the same time, we have to steel the line of academic workforce by recruiting capable lecturers with wide experience and by inviting renowned Islamic scholars and experts to deliver speeches and lectures from time to time.
By doing this, I assume that it will be possible for the university to attract the attention of local and international students. This is because Muslims today really need a university such as this to be the bridge between the East and the West.
From my previous visits to several universities, I found out that all of them welcomed this intention and the aim of the university's establishment.
Q: Arabic has a high position among the languages of the world, in the aspect of politics, economy, tourism and such. The language is also one of the medium of instruction for the studies in Unissa. Hence, what is your opinion about how to make Arabic favoured by the students as well as the general public in Brunei?
A: For Arabic to be favoured by the students as well as the general public, I think that there are some measures that need to be taken. They are:
(1) To provide an in-depth understanding and highlight the importance of Arabic in matters of worship. Muslims, apart from other matters, need a good command over Arabic because of close relations with the Arab world
(2) A modern Arabic Language Centre should be set up, equipped with facilities that can attract the students so that teaching and learning process of Arabic can be carried out effectively.
(3) To draft an updated curriculum, which is interesting and easy to be carried out.
(4) Get skilled and capable teachers:
Q: Lastly, what is the niche for the university?
A: I think what has become the niche for the university is a true and genuine Islamic studies in Arabic and English, to memorise parts of al-Quran according to respective programmes and recite them well.
Other than that, referring to the understanding of Ahli Sunnah Wal Jammah and Mazhab Shafi'i and offering general programmes with Eng lish as medium of instruction and accounting the Islamic perspective.
We hope with this niche is to produce Islamic graduates with global thinking.
The establishment of Unissa will become the symbol of excellence and glory of a religious way of life in the country, suitable with the concept of Malay Islam Monarchy (MIB). Unissa as a true Islamic university signifies the commitment of His Majesty in preserving Islam and to produce Islamic scholars who will further develop and enrich the understanding of Islam among the growing Muslim population.
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Posted by: HiMYSYeD on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 05:05 PM EST (1044 Reads)
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Globe and Mail Update
May 30, 2007 at 3:49 PM EDT -- Islamic finance is one of the fastest-growing areas of financial services in the world. Global banks are scrambling to start offering products that conform to sharia law, just as billions of dollars from oil-rich countries in the Middle East look for places to invest.
Canada's not immune to the trend. Most of the big banks are contemplating offering sharia-compliant products to expand their reach among Canada's fastest-growing immigrant population. Products range from mortgages to mutual funds, car financings and bonds.
Sharia-compliant services are similar to any other type of so-called socially responsible investing. In this case, they tend to meet three criteria: no explicit interest; transactions can't be in such areas such as gambling, pork or pornography; and can't be deemed too high risk.
Several articles written in the Globe and Mail have sparked a lively online debate over the growth in such services, the line between faith and finance and what it means to be Canadian.
Walied Soliman, a lawyer at Ogilvy Renault, will join us to take your questions. He acts for clients in a wide range of industries, including mining, energy and pharma and has also helped develop numerous Islamic-finance structured products. He's been seconded to the legal group of CIBC and to the Ontario Securities Commission's enforcement branch.
He'll be online on Thursday May 31, 2007 at noon EDT to discuss the demand and potential for sharia-compliant financial services in Canada and its rise around the world.
You can join the conversation by submitting a question ahead of time by clicking here.
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Posted by: HiMY on Monday, April 09, 2007 - 06:21 PM EST (1000 Reads)
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By Francesca Di Meglio --Any MBA student is going to have a strong grounding in the vocabulary of finance, including interest rates and lending. But some schools are now adding programs and courses that are teaching a new vocabulary for an increasingly visible sector of the financial world—Islamic banks that conduct business according to the tenets of Islamic law.
One of the latest schools to take an interest in Islamic banking is the Cass Business School, part of the City University, London, which in the fall is launching an Executive MBA based in Dubai featuring specializations in Islamic finance, energy and general management, and finance. The school says there's a need for more MBAs with experience in the area.
The number of schools offering Islamic finance programs is still relatively small—and at some universities, relevant courses can be found outside the confines of the business programs. But experts say that, at the very least, business students should know something about this expanding industry. "Anyone who seeks to work in the Islamic world should be interested in this area, because it's booming," says Ibrahim Warde, author of the soon-to-be-updated Islamic Finance and the Global Economy (Edinburgh University Press, 2000). "Understanding Islamic finance is highly valued in the marketplace."
Travel Incentives
The basic principle behind Islamic banking—which is based on Shariah, or Koranic law—is that people shouldn't be charged interest on loans or be paid interest on investments. A venerable system of banking, Islamic finance resurfaced in the 1970s and was updated in the wake of the oil boom in the Middle East.
Today, there's an increasing number of financial products and services available that are compliant with Islamic finance. Rising petroleum prices, increased attention on the Middle East as a result of politics, and competition between Bahrain and Dubai for the title of Middle Eastern financial center are other factors contributing to the economic surge (see BusinessWeek.com, 8/8/05, "Islamic Banks: A Novelty No Longer").
Islamic institutions and banks offer everything from sukuks—bonds that are structured to comply with Shariah and have become hugely popular—to asset selling, where a bank purchases a car, for example, and resells it to clients rather than offering an interest-based loan for the vehicle. Islamic credit cards that have users essentially borrowing money from themselves and incentives, such as trips to the holy city of Mecca, are other examples of how institutions are drawing Muslim customers.
Future Hub?
With all this growth, there's a shortage of skilled workers in Islamic finance, says Hassan Hakimian, Cass's associate dean for Off-Campus Programs, which says Islamic finance is growing at about 15% per year and will continue to do so for at least the next decade. Hakimian is one of the creators of the school's 24-month executive MBA program, which will debut in September. The school purposefully decided to offer Islamic finance and energy concentrations, says Hakimian, because of the relevance of those two topics to the program's home in Dubai.
Cass seems to be in Dubai's corner when it comes to the argument about which Middle Eastern capital will reign supreme. The Cass EMBA program will include online learning complemented by one weekend a month in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates. "I wouldn't be surprised if, in coming years, parts of the Middle East will grow, and Dubai will become the hub of business education," says Hakimian. He expects to admit 30 to 40 students in the inaugural class.
Other B-schools have also been paying attention to Islamic finance. In 2004, Rice University in Houston announced that economics and statistics professor Mahmoud El-Gamal had been chosen to serve as the first Islamic finance scholar-in-residence at the U.S. Treasury Dept. (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/27/03, "The Race to Rule Islamic Finance"). Considered among the world's leading experts on the subject, El-Gamal already was the chair of Islamic Economics, Finance, & Management at the university.
Rising Interest
Harvard has also been researching Islamic finance for some time. In 1995, the university launched the Harvard Islamic Finance Project (IFP), a group that studies and analyzes the growth of Islamic finance. The project brings together faculty and students from the law, divinity, and business schools, among others. Interested students at Harvard Business School can take advantage of relevant seminars, conferences, and networking opportunities planned by the project group. They also participate in the selection of papers that are published after being introduced at a conference regularly organized by the IFP.
S. Nazim Ali, director of the Islamic Finance Project, says he has noticed an increased demand for information on the topic among both faculty and students. At Harvard, there are 19 examples of relevant theses, dissertations, and research projects on Islamic finance. And six case studies on the growing sector are available through the B-school. Ali also confirms that he's getting more inquiries from other schools about how to approach research and teach this subject to students of various disciplines.
Still, even Harvard is without an actual Islamic finance course. But some HBS and John F. Kennedy School of Government students head to Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy. There, Warde, also a Fletcher adjunct professor, teaches "Islamic Banking & Finance," which provides an overview of the industry's history, the range of financial products available today, and matters of politics and the possibility of terrorist financing. Warde also teaches a course that exposes students to the Arabic language, with a particular emphasis on Islamic finance vocabulary and oral and written communication.
Student interest in the "Islamic Banking & Finance" course has skyrocketed since Warde first started teaching it. When the course kicked off three years ago, 10 students signed up. Now, almost 40 students are enrolled. Business opportunities are going to keep coming in the world of Islamic finance for at least a few more years, says Warde. For the moment, though, MBAs will have to educate themselves about the field by traveling outside their comfort zone—and maybe even beyond the walls of their B-school.
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Posted by: HiMY on Thursday, October 12, 2006 - 01:51 PM EST (846 Reads)
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By Huraizah Ahrnad
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, BRUNEI -- Several personnel from Insurans Islam TAIB Sdn Bhd and American International Assurance (AIA) have completed a course in Islamic Financial Planning (IFPC).
The programme, which was organised by BRUNEI Consultancy Services and participated by Muslims and nonMuslims, was aimed at providing the necessary information for those in the financial planning field to produce holistic financial planning in accordance with the Sya'riah principles.
Core topics included Source and Sya'riah Methodology in Islamic Banking and Finance, Fiqh Muamalat Fundamentals and Applications, Time and Value of Money and Return of Islamic Financial Instruments, Takaful Planning, Estate Planning Instruments, Mathematics of Faraid, Zakat Planning and Islamic Financial Planning Construction.
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Posted by: HiMY on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - 01:14 PM EST (1150 Reads)
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KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA -- Bank Negara Malaysia is offering a Syariah scholarship award and research grant as part of its initiative to enlarge and enhance the pool of Syariah scholars well equipped with the necessary knowledge and competencies in both Syariah and Islamic finance.
Bank Negara said on August 25 that the scholarship is offered to local and foreign candidates to pursue post-graduate studies in the field of Syariah relating to Islamic commercial jurisprudence in recognised universities as well as to obtain Certified Islamic Finance Professional offered by the International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance.
The research grant would be offered to organisations and institutions of higher learning, locally and abroad, to undertake research in the areas of Syariah relating to Islamic finance, takaful and Islamic capital market, it said.
“The objective of the grant is to intensify the volume of research activities, provide new insights and perspectives, as well as to promote innovative ideas and solutions in addressing contemporary issues in the Islamic financial services industry,” it said in a statement.
It added that the scholarships and grants are funded from the revenue generated by the RM200 million endownment fund for Syariah scholars in Islamic finance, which was established by Bank Negara this year.
Applications forms and qualifying criteria for the scholarship and grant are available at www.bnm.gov.my.
All applications for the Syariah Scholarship Award for 2006 must reach Bank Negara by November 30, 2006 and for the Syariah Research Grant by Dec 29, 2006.
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Posted by: IslamBank on Tuesday, April 04, 2006 - 06:15 PM EST (2292 Reads)
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KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA -- The Islamic banking and finance industry worldwide needs to step up efforts to attract more conventional banking clients to sustain strong growth, according to an expert.
University of Marburg president Prof Dr Volker Nienhaus told the International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance's (INCEIF) inaugural Islamic Banking and Finance Colloquium 2006 yesterday the industry was facing increasing competition from within and had exhausted its “ideological client” base.
“When Islamic banking was introduced in several countries 10 to 20 years ago, there was initially a rush for such services but after a while, the market stagnated as the pool of people using the services for religious reason was exhausted,” he said.
To attract new clients, Islamic finance needed to offer more attractive products, which meant the same range of products offered by conventional banking but on better terms, he said.
“Existing players must provide substitutes for almost all conventional products,” he said.
 Prof Dr Volker Nienhaus
Bank Negara has targeted the Islamic banking and finance sector to account for 20% of the total banking and finance assets in 2010.
“This ambitious target requires the conversion of customers from conventional banking to Islamic banking,” Nienhau added.
Apart from this, the industry needed higher syariah experts, more creative and anticipative financial engineers as well as more “true” innovations, he said.
Nienhaus, who is one of INCEIF's governing council member said his recent survey on Islamic degree programmes offered at both Islamic and non-Islamic universities worldwide showed that the latter offered more specific Islamic degree programmes.
INCEIF has established links with domestic and international Islamic and non-Islamic universities and can draw on the experience and expertise of various industry-specific institutions, including Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions, Islamic Financial Services Board and Islamic Money Market, he said.
“It is able to react on technical, conceptual and human resource needs of the Islamic finance and has the potential to anticipate forthcoming issues,” he added.
INCEIF's first intake for its Certified Islamic Finance Professional programme is in June and the masters and PhD programmes in Islamic banking and finance, takaful and syariah in October.
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Posted by: IslamBank on Friday, March 31, 2006 - 04:44 PM EST (804 Reads)
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KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA -- FINANCIAL education is becoming more important every day.
Thirty years ago, it was enough for you to know how to manage your savings and current accounts.
But now, with the increasing variety of financial products in the market, you have to know about the many investment schemes such as unit trust, bonds, stocks and the recently introduced REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) for instance, and the numerous credit facilities offered in the form of credit cards, mortgage, personal loan and hire purchase.
According to MasterCard International, total consumer spending in Malaysia is expected to increase to a whopping RM257 billion per year by 2013.
It is a healthy indication of the expected increase in household income at five per cent per annum.
But, it could also mean an increase in consumption credit, where, as at September last year, stood at RM118 billion.
The importance of financial education Financial education is important for at least two reasons.
It helps you to:
Understand financial instruments Money plays an integral part in every facet of your life.
You need financing while pursuing higher education, buying your first house, welcoming your first-born baby, and planning for your retirement, among others.
With each major event happening in your life, there are many financial instruments in the market which are supposed to help make life easier for you.
Although the products are in abundance, only the one that suits your needs will give you the most returns.
In selecting a home loan, for instance, your understanding on the impact of compounding interest and the implications of mismanaging credit will help you to choose the one with the lowest interest and the best repayment structure.
Create and build assets With the right understanding of financial instruments, you can create and build assets.
Instead of perceiving debts as something "bad", debts can be used to build up property ownership, for instance.
You need more than RM100,000 to buy a house, so unless you are rich, you will probably have to get loan from the bank.
Thus, it is important for you to have financial knowledge.
Instead of being financially ignorant, you can take advantage of the products and loans in the market.
Sources of financial education There are many sources for you to learn about personal finance.
But what determines your choice of education resources depends on your personality and lifestyle.
Some of the resources you can choose from are articles, books, courses and seminars.
Articles Articles can be found both on the Internet and in printed material.
The current trend is for magazines to include a special column on personal finance.
These columnists are in-house or professional writers with a background in finance-related fields.
This is a healthy trend indeed; until fairly recently, financial articles were exclusively in finance magazines.
Now, they are available in magazines of various genres.
As far as on-line articles are concerned, there is still room for improvement.
This is partly due to low Internet penetration in Malaysia compared with more advanced countries.
Nonetheless, there are a few commendable initiatives taken by Government agencies in their bid to promote financially-literate citizens.
The Securities Commission, through its education and training arm, has developed a website known as the Malaysian Investor.
The website not only teaches the public about the securities market in Malaysia, it also teaches the basics of financial planning.
Bank Negara, assuming a bigger role in educating the public about personal finance, has created several websites.
The websites are:
Bankinginfo (developed in collaboration with the Association of Banks in Malaysia) The website carries all the information you'll ever need to know about banking and its products.
From Internet banking to Islamic-based financial products, you can refer to the website for information about banking and everything related to it.
The latest feature of the website is Comparative Tables where you get to compare interest rates, bank by bank, on a few products such as hire purchase, fixed deposits and credit cards.
This helps you to save time on finding the lowest rate for your car loan.
Insuranceinfo (developed in collaboration with LIAM, PIAM and Malaysian Takaful Association) Like Bankinginfo, Insuranceinfo is a good source of information on everything to do with insurance.
It has comprehensive details on general insurance, life insurance and Islamic-based insurance or better known as Takaful.
The website has also added a new feature - articles are now available in Mandarin and Tamil, albeit in PDF format (Portable Document File) where you have to download a free Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to access the files.
Duitsaku.com Specifically designed to cater for school children, its contents are for two age groups, namely, seven to 12 and 13 to 17 years old.
This website is loaded with games and interactive activities that makes it fun for children to learn.
From the history of money to the theme song, the website provides a wealth of knowledge for the children.
Books There are thousands of books on personal finance.
Among the best-sellers are Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad series, George Clason's Rich Man in Babylon, Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, Thomas Stanley's The Millionaire Next Door, and Wallace Wattles's Science of Getting Rich.
Costing less than RM100 each, these books can be your companion while you are queuing in the banks or taking a train ride to and from work - good ways to increase your knowledge on financial matters.
Courses and seminars You can also sign-up for a course or seminar where you can immerse yourself totally in the subject of financial planning for a number of days or hours.
There are many organisers which offer these types of courses, but they are quite expensive.
So, to get value for your money and a taste of the course content, it is advisable for you to attend "preview" or "taster" seminars which are often free.
While attending these previews, take down a few facts and read the recommended books to get a better idea of the topics, before making your decision on whether to enrol for the course or not.
Get some feedback from people who have attended the courses before.
To create wealth, first you must invest in yourself, especially in terms of education, to manage your finances wisely.
If you have procrastinated too long and missed the opportunity to improve your knowledge, now is the best time for you to take action.
So, have fun educating yourself.
References: Malaysian Investor (www.min.com.my) Bankinginfo (www.bankinginfo.com.my) Insuranceinfo (www.insuranceinfo.com.my) Duitsaku.com (www.duitsaku.com) * This article is courtesy of the ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants).
The ACCA is the largest global professional accountancy body, with nearly 345,000 members and students in 160 countries.
For more information on the ACCA, please visit www.accaglobal.com.
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