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In case you didn’t know, HUSM stands for Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia and I’m currently working there. Early this year, my head of the department got invited by MDeC to this event. The event took place at Kuala Lumpur Convention Center from 18/5/2008 to 22/5/2008. You can read all the information about WCIT here.

To my surprise, we were the only hospital that manage software development all by ourselves. Even though Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia started developing their own, they still has to rely on vendors in terms of hardware and the database (they’re using Oracle). Other hospitals didn’t actually bring their own IT Department people, instead they sent their vendors. However, they’re some from Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia who brought their own IT people even though the application they brought was coded by the vendor (the only difference is that they own the code, not the vendor).

The event was a really an eye opener for me. I saw lots of new technologies that has been integrated into our daily lives. It’s pretty cool to see the advancement of IT industries in Malaysia. I managed to meet some interesting developers, managers and others who has a lot of experience in the industry itself. Not to forget, I also managed to come close to our Prime Minister and also Yang di Pertuan Agong. It was almost as I could actually slap their back, but of course I didn’t do it, hey, I still love my job :)

However, I’m a little bit disappointed with the technology used. Lots of people/developers/vendors in the government still rely on non-open source software. Why should you pay when you can get it free? That’s what HUSM is trying to say in the event. We’ve developed our own software and save millions of ringgit, but of course, other managements don’t care, they think as long as they have the money, they’ll just spend it to the max. What they don’t realize is that some of the money that shouldn’t be spent in the first place could be used for other things. Now, imagine that mindset in each and every head of the department (including non-IT) in Malaysia. We could actually save billions and our IT people will gain knowledge more than ever.

I’m also surprised other IT Department didn’t bother to ask us much about the technologies that are being used in our applications. I mean, it’s not that weird if the end user didn’t ask what database that we use, but IT people ? Come on, it’s like a chef is not interested in asking about the recipe (ok, maybe a bad analogy there, but you should get my point).

Even though we just got small booth (read: very very small), I think we somehow manage to tell the people that HUSM is different. I’m looking forward to another event like this. Till then, enjoy the photos taken using Canon A710 at my Picasa Web Albums.

P/S: Thanks to MDeC for the invitation, we really appreciate it :)

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