On 9 June 2020, Senior Vice President of Global operations at Broadcom, Dato Ooi Boon Chye handed a personal sponsorship of RM20,000 for Methodist Boy School (MBS) under the StepUP Initiative.
StepUP is a programme aimed at bringing interesting STEM-learning extra-curricular workshops and activities to schools in Penang to complement the teaching of Science and Mathematics in schools under the formal curriculum.
The programme aimed at sparking the interests of lower secondary students and inspiring them to pursue higher studies and future careers in related fields.
Under the StepUP Initiative, industry players such as MNCs, SMEs, local corporations and others adopt schools of their choice to help fund STEM programmes to be conducted by the 5 participating centres under Penang STEM, namely PSDC, TDP, CAT, PMP, and PDL
Dato’ Ooi (right) presented a sponsorship plaque to Dato’ Khoo Cheok Sin (left)
Mr Lau Chong Beng, School Principal of MBS delivered aspeech to the audience.
StepUP was jointly initiated by Penang STEM and the Penang Education Department through its North East District Office and was launched in September last year.
Dato’ Ooi also presented a sponsorship plaque to Dato’ Khoo Cheok Sin (Chairman of the MBS Board of Governors) which was witnessed by Mr. Richard Chung, General Manager of Penang STEM, Northeast District Deputy Education Officer Mr. Abdul Said, School Principal, Mr Lau Chong Beng and other school teachers.
In his short address, Dato’ Ooi said that he was happy to help out the school since it was his alma mater and it was aimed at encouraging students to excel in Mathematics and Science. “Nowadays, parents are too worried about their kids being under pressure for studying Mathematics which I personally think it is not true. We need more engineers in my company and so does the country.”
He also mentioned in his speech that he hopes to be able to carry on supporting the school. He hopes that the StepUP initiative could give the encouragement to the children to have more interest in Science and Mathematics.
Dato’ Ooi is currently responsible for managing Broadcom’s worldwide manufacturing, outsourcing, procurement, order management, planning and logistic, and Quality Organizations. He was also the Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations from 2003 until 2008.
Prior to Xilinx, Boon Chye Ooi had a long and successful career at Intel Corporation and the held the position of Vice President of Intel’s Corporate Technology Group and Vice President of Intel’s Systems manufacturing group. In that role he led Intel’s Systems worldwide plant operations