Cy @Work

I was unable to attend the previous technical forum on OR practice, but I’ll try to make it this time.

What: Technical forum on OR and Sustainable Development

When: Saturday, 02 August 2008, 1:00-5:00 p.m.

Where: PLDT-Convergent Technologies Center, Room 105, Ateneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Philippines

Topics:

1. Integrating Operations Research Methods with Social Science Models for Sustainable Development - Some Case Studies
   Dr. Guillermo Mendoza (Balik-Scientist), Associate Professor, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
2. Geographic Information Systems for Participatory Natural Resource Management
   Dr. Rhodora Gonzalez, Associate Professor, Department of Geodetic Engineering
   and the Training Center for Applied Geodesy and Photogrammetry, University of the Philippines- Diliman
3. OR Tools and Techniques in Environment-related Problem Domains
   Dr. Alvin Culaba, Director, Center for Engineering and Sustainable Development Research, De La Salle University – Manila

Details of the technical forum can be downloaded here.

I was reading with great interest Steve Pavlina’s article on skill. The author, widely known for his personal development blog, wrote about the skills he has developed through the years in order to become a competent blogger on his chosen field. Some of these core skills include a deep personal development knowledge, communication and technical skills for setting up his blog.

Then a similar question came to me: what are the core skills of an OR practitioner? I already researched and mentioned a few of these in my previous article on my graduate study experience. I’d like to list down some of these skills which must be continuously honed in order to become an OR pro:

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Although I didn’t set a specific goal for the number of posts I’ll write per week, I think at least 2 posts per week are necessary to be able to consider myself as an active blogger. I don’t want this blog to go inactive like my previous one which I neglected due to the demands of graduate studies and personal matters.

But right now, it’s quite a challenge to keep this blog afloat. Now that I’m in my 2nd to the last semester in graduate school, I’m currently taking 12 units, as opposed to 9 units in all my previous semesters. The two subjects I’m currently taking are actually remedial courses in industrial engineering, as I came from a pure math background. The other two subjects are formal graduate courses. Here are the descriptions of the subjects I’m currently taking:

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One of my newly found interests during the course of my graduate study is technology entrepreneurship. This didn’t come by accident because I actually worked for a startup software company after I graduated from college. That work experience inspired me to take up my master’s degree because I realized that I was still lacking advanced technical skills.

Thus, as an extracurricular activity, I volunteered for the Philippine Emerging Startups Open (PESO), a local organization which hosts a technology business plan competition. I did only minor tasks but the experience was still worth the effort. In the culmination night for the year 2006, the competition finalists, venture capitalists, the media and supporters of technology entrepreneurship converged. In that event, I was fortunate to have met Peter Valdes, considered to be one of the 10 most inspiring Filipino technology entrepreneurs. I summoned my courage to introduce myself to him. And it was set. I would work for him as a research intern for his company Vinta Systems.

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As an OR novice, I’m very interested in getting to know more about my field. I regularly browse articles from the online version of the magazine OR/MS Today. I’m also on the lookout for resources, websites and blogs about OR.

Recently, the June 2008 edition of the Operations Research of the Philippines (ORSP) Newsletter was delivered to me via mail. I wasn’t able to attend the last Technical Forum of the ORSP so I was quite interested to read the newsletter. Among other things, it talked about real-world applications of OR and experiences of OR consultants. There’s also an announcement of a Technical Forum next month which focuses on OR education. As an OR graduate student, this is something I look forward to attending.

After reading the newsletter, I wondered if it also has an online version similar to OR/MS Today, so that more people could read it. I soon discovered that the official ORSP website is down and still being redesigned. I then decided to ask the ORSP through Ms. Carol Gica, the ORSP Secretariat, if I could host, at least temporarily, the latest edition of the newsletter. I’m fortunate because I was given the permission to do so. The newsletter is now available in the downloads section of this blog.