KUCHING: The motivation for a US citizen to pack up and relocate to Malaysia without batting an eye-lid has to be exceptionally compelling.
RELOCATED: Paul Baker at home away from home in Inti.
For Paul Baker, knowing that two of his favourite and most dynamic instructors had been recruited to deliver a new Masters programme at Inti University College (INTI-UC) was all that he needed to know before embarking on a life-changing move.
Baker considers himself privileged to have studied under Dr Terry Halpin and Dr Tony Morgan, architects of the Masters in Business Information Technology (MBT) programme at INTI-UC.
“Both men are brilliant in their area of expertise and taught me valuable skills that no other lecturer of mine was able to do,” said Baker.
“When I heard they were going to be at Inti, I packed up and moved out here as soon as I could.”
MBT is purpose designed to meet the specialised demand of architects (Information/Systems), business analysts, business intelligence consultants and business process management professionals who need to optimise existing information technology investment or re-engineer solutions to meet the business challenges of tomorrow.
Baker learned from experience that businesses rely heavily on ‘information’ to make good business decisions.
“At my previous job, my bosses were always asking me to turn the massive amounts of our company’s ‘data’ into relevant ‘information.’
Unfortunately, my degree in programming didn’t equip me with the necessary skills to consistently do that. I’m taking up the MBT programme to learn all about turning ‘data’ into ‘information,’” he said.
The MBT programme will leverage on close industry collaboration to focus on important current skill areas and future technologies, as well as important soft skills like teamwork, communication, presentation and project management; built around an innovative project based model, which brings together the skills required for doing business and applying technology.
“It is an amazing opportunity to learn under an award winning professor and IT industry consultant like Dr Terry Halpin,” Baker said.
“Imagine being taught by the very man who authored books that are being used by lecturers around the world! Dr Halpin has authored over 150 technical publications and six books, and is the conceptual designer of Norma (Natural ORM Architect), an open source modelling tool plug-in to Microsoft Visual Studio,” he said.
Upon completing the MBT, Baker is confident he will be equipped with the skills necessary to drive business objectives, create new ways of using information management, and lead teams in local, national and international organisations.
“I’m planning on majoring in Information Management which will set me up for a career in business intelligence,” Baker said.
“From past experience, I can see how important the employee who is able to pull together data and turn it into relevant business information is. Business intelligence is all about creating the ‘dashboards’ that business leaders are so keen for.”
For more information on the MBT programme, the public may visit www.newinti.edu.my or call 06-7982000.