Bill Clinton to give lecture in Malaysia

Great news! There is an opportunity to listen to the lecture of Bill Clinton (former president of US) in Malaysia, and the ticket will be given free of charge.

On 6 December 2008, Clinton will present the inaugural BC Sekhar memorial lecture organised by the Sekhar Foundation (founded by Datuk Vinod Balachandra Sekhar, president and founder of Petra Group) and the Asian Strategy & Leadership Institute (ASLI).

In that event, he will also receive the BC Sekhar Medal for Transformational Leadership, a new award given to individuals who have demonstrated a lifetime of commitment to bringing about positive change in the world. The medal would be awarded to Clinton for his tireless work to tackle the root causes of poverty in the world. Other factors included his steadfast commitment to foster understanding in divided communities and his determination to see people working together in friendship to bring about change.

Clinton will be in Kuala Lumpur for about 2 days right after the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Hong Kong.

If you are interested in attending, just send an email to clintonlecture@petragroup.net with your name, address, contact number and MyKAD or passport number from 1pm today (13 November 2008). Up to 500 members of the public will be given seats for the lecture.

Malaysian household monthly income distribution 2007

Today, there is a report in the Chinapress newspaper which provides us a set of figures about the Malaysian household monthly income distribution based on Household Income Survey (HIS) done in year 2007 by the Department of Statistics Malaysia. Here are the figures:

With the data above, we can derive the constituent of household by ethnic which has participated in the HIS 2007, as shown below. The percentage is pretty much in line with the ethnic group percentage of population of Malaysia.

And we can interprete the data in the table with a bar graph like this:

You can compare this graph with the one in my earlier article posted on 18 September 2008, which is based on data from a different source. With no surprise, they look very alike. The graph above is able to show more information. What can you see from it?

Remember there is another pie chart in my earlier article posted on 18 September 2008? You can compare it with this one which is based on our new set of data. They are pretty much the same, aren't they?

Now look at another graph to reveal more information. What can you see from it?

If you see each of the income group vertically, you can actually rank how each ethnic group performs for each of the income group. The Kadazan and Orang Asli have a big population in the lower income group, and very low percentage in the higher income group. Majority of the Chinese are in the 5k-10k income group.

You can also clearly see the "M shape" in the Chinese and Indian lines, and the formation of "M" in other ethnic groups can also be sensed.

What else can you see from the graphs above?

Satyam acquires Motorola software development center (SDC) in Cyberjaya

India's Satyam Computer Services Ltd, which is the 4th largest IT solutions and service provider and has its own building block in Cyberjaya Malaysia, has just initiated an acquisition to its Cyberjaya neighbour - the software development center (SDC) of Motorola in Malaysia.

On the recent Monday, the 128 staff in Motorola SDC were briefed about the acquisition, that all of them, together with the SDC’s assets, will be diverted from Motorola to Satyam by the end of the year. Anyhow, they are assured by the management that their contractual bonus for the year will not be affected.

The SDC is part of Motorola's Home and Network Mobility business and focuses on network management system development. After the acquisition, Motorola will outsource the business to Satyam and get the same level of service as before.

Both Satyam and Motorola are listed in New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). To date, Satyam has a staff strength of over 500 in Malaysia.