Yes, we’re still alive. We had some general housekeeping and handover issues to take care of at the start. But everything is pretty much sorted out now.

Without further ado, some updates from this end:

• A wiki for your thoughts. A complaint we got was that some people simply do not use Facebook. At a time when every event posting seems to pop up there, some people can miss out on announcements and RSVPs. To that end, we now also have a wiki. But more importantly, the wiki opens up another channel for communication. So if you have any feedback, ideas or suggestions, do let us know. Create your own page there even if you like! Alternatively, you can also leave a comment here, or ping us at exco [at] nocalumni.org
• Help us plan our events. Besides the first briefing for the Jul 2008 batch, we also organized two other events: a GLEAN movie mixer with Tom Kosnik and a sharing session with iLEAD (thanks to Ruiwen for making that possible). Do keep an eye out for more events in the future. But here’s where we need your help. What would you like to see? Ideas for topics, themes, anything really…click here, and let us know.
• Ideas for this website. We’ve been discussing some ideas on how to improve this website, which our friend Leon Poon (thanks for migrating this site to Wordpress) has affectionately named the “World Domination Plan”. ;) Shamantha and Ryan have some interesting suggestions of their own. More on this once the ideas start shaping up. Again, if you have any ideas, leave a comment below.

That’s about it for now. For those who still have exams, all the best for the last lap. We can celebrate the end of the semester at the next TGIF. :)

The 3rd TGIF was held in the new year. A dinner at Fish & Co, there were representatives from all four colleges this time. This TGIF was organized by Shanghai college. A note of thanks to Teo Kaisiang (NCSH 6) for coordinating.

The bootcamp on 15th Dec 2007 was the second part for the outgoing batch of Jan 2008 after the first section was held in Oct 2007.

“Sat’s bootcamp is fun and enjoyable. I quite like the games, cause they are interactive,” commented Julia Carolina who will be among the 6th batch of NCST. Other than the Shootout game, this second part of the bootcamp was focused on senior-junior interaction, alumni sharing, and introducing the outgoing batch to the college organisations.

See photos here.

During the silent hours of 1 am in the NUS school compound, a buzz was going on in the NOC Office where the local leg of BizBuzz07 was taking place on 9th Dec 2007.

BizBuzz07, a business case analysis competition, was the first inter-college event linking the NOC colleges in Silicon Valley, Bio Valley, Shanghai and Stockholm. Teams from the four colleges comprising of NOC students and students from the partner universities were given a case to solve within 72 hours. Thereafter, teams had to present their devised strategies to judges in the Bay Area via video conferencing.

On the side of Singapore, a team representing the NOC Alumni - Vincent Woon (NCSV 10), Valerie Choy (NCSV 10), Sharan H Makhija (NCSV 10), Philip Joe (NCBV 8 ) and Vipin Gupta (NCBV 8 ) (all from the outgoing batch of Jul 2006) took part in the competition. Presentations of all participating teams from the various colleges were viewed live in the NOC office.

Said Xu Daxiang (NCSV 11), who was heading the overall organisation of the event, “It was really an amazing effort from everyone - Shu Yang (NCSV) was the chief architect for the video conferencing technology, Stephanie (NCBV), Haikal (NCST) and Renzhi (NCSH) were superb in coordinating with the participants in their respective colleges. And also Brian and Jia Fang (NOC Alumni), who worked assiduously to design the BizBuzz logo in the midst of their exams. It was really a team effort and all of us were glad that we made this event happen. This is just a small step towards organising a bigger scale inter-college event in the future and, more importantly, forging camaraderie among students in the different NOC colleges.”

See photos here.

Organised by NCBV (Thanks to Gim Huat, NCBV 8), the second TGIF was a dinner held at NYDC, Suntec City.

The TGIF was also a surprise birthday celebration for our dear Mira, who has been working very hard to make every alumni event possible this year. This was probably one of the rare few events that she didn’t have to organize. Happy Birthday Mira!