Entry 4 : Gearing up for operational launch + Last few weeks at iVEC

Hello everyone,

The internship journey at iVEC has been really pleasant so far and I have attained valuable knowledge along the way. The last few weeks at iVEC has been intense but enjoyable at the same time. My marketing manager, David has been really helpful and given us heaps of tasks to for us to work on and learn from.

I remember one particular morning, where I had to go into a meeting with both my marketing managers to have a discussion about the operational launch of the pawsey centre that will take place early november this year.

David decided to test my knowledge of organising events. He knew that I had similar experience from my previous internship with the Ministry of Environment Singapore. He wanted me to go through each and every aspect required for the launch. I was asked to do role-play, where I played boss and they played events coordinators. It was daunting at first, but I slowly got the idea. I made sure I went through each aspect needed for the event to be a successful one. I had to make sure all the information was prepared and ready to look at, that included outline, running sheet, catering order etc.

We had to be very tactful with all the invites as well, making sure invites were sent out at the right time. People may tend to forget if invites are sent out too early or it might be too late for someone to make it if we send it out really close to the actual launch date.

In preparation for the launch, we had to order in light boxes to be displayed in the pawsey centre. An example of light box:

Source: http://www.prolab.com.au/gfx/services/display-exhibition/lightboxes/Strada.jpg

The task of sourcing out images and content was left to the interns. We had to source out interesting case studies and attain information write-ups and HD graphics to be used for the light boxes. Running it by the manager first was of course mandatory. It was a great privilege to be trusted with a huge task like this. 

This is how the entrance of the pawsey centre looks like: 

 photo courtesy: Woodhead

I am still interning with iVEC for the time-being. I have decided to stay on for a little while more. However, I have completed my 20 days requirement for the unit. 

All in all, this internship has provided me the opportunity to actively participate and contribute to the company's projects and communication objectives by allowing me to utilise the text-book knowledge I have attained from university. This in return, has given me a real-industry hands on experience that cannot be bought elsewhere. I am really thankful to curtin careers centre and my marketing managers for the wonderful internship experience. 

With that note, I am going to end my blogging journey and I want to wish the best of luck to all students undertaking the unit with their report and future endeavours. 

Cheers, 

Shaleeha Hajamaideen
16343652
Curtin University
Bentley Campus

Entry 3 : The Pawsey Centre

Hello again guys!


The past few weeks at iVEC has been pretty hectic. A project that has been much anticipated at iVEC would be the Pawsey centre. The initial launch also known as the facility launch was conducted on the 8th of august. Federal Science Minister Kim Carr launched the Pawsey Centre and it was initiated in association with a national event, known as the National Science week. 

The government allocated $80 million to the development of the Pawsey Centre. This super science initiative aims to improve scientific research amongst scientists in Western Australia.The Pawsey centre is constructued to enable new supercomputing facilities that includes petascale supercomputing and also to support the bid for the Square Kilometre Array.

CSIRO, the centre agent for iVEC has led the development of the Pawsey Centre. iVEC was chosen to represent and manage the operations of Pawsey Centre. iVEC would also be hosting an operational launch in the next few weeks, which I will talk about in my next blog post. 

For facility launch, that was conducted on the 8th of august, I had to draft up a media release. The final release can be found here.  

We had a walk around the facility before it was launched. The supercomputer facility is huge. We are currently anticipating the operational launch and have to work towards preparing everything required for the launch! 

Photos from the facility launch 

Till next time! 

Regards,
Shaleeha Hajamaideen

16343652

Curtin University

Bentley Campus

Entry 2 : Case studies for iVEC

Hello everyone! So, the next few weeks as iVEC was a little more challenging and interesting. My marketing manager set us interns to work on a few case studies for iVEC. Th case studies come in a form of information sheets  for the general public. The case studies basically reflects and highlights a scientific research project that utilised the supercomputing software with iVEC.

This is what a typical case study would look like:

We were required to do the write-ups for the information sheets. The challenge was that, we had to source out the background information by ourselves. We had to email the researcher or scientist to interview and get more information about their research project and sort of work from there.

The case study adopts a certain form of model. The key sections that had to be written up include the overview of the project, the challenge the research posted, how the challenged was faced and the outcome of the entire research project.

Initially, I found it relatively complicated to write about as it involves a lot of scientific terms that I am not familiar with. However, as we progressed to do more case studies, I became more comfortable with writing up information sheets for scientific research projects.

One of the case studies that I worked on was about the MOOSE software. That piece of work was well-received by my manager. He was impressed with it, that he decided to turn it into a three-fold pamphlet for iVEC. Therefore, there were more details that needed to be included. I had to write about the services that iVEC offered. I also had to source for pictures and graphics based on the research project to be utilised for the pamphlet.

Overall, it was a great learning experience and I enjoyed it very much. Till next time!

Regards,

Shaleeha Hajamaideen
16343652
Curtin University
Bentley Campus

Entry 1 : First few weeks at iVEC

Hi all,

My name is Shaleeha. I started my internship at iVEC, an Australian based research company not too long ago. The first initial meeting with my marketing manager, David Sattherwaite was rather interesting. I went in for an interview and I was shown around the research computing facility. It was huge! We spoke about working around my uni schedule and I decided to go into work twice a week to complete my internship hours.

Information on the company

iVEC is a joint venture between the four public universities in Western Australia and CSIRO. iVEC has been operating since the year 2000. iVEC aims to promote scientific and technological researches and projects by providing supercomputing capabilities. I am now part of the marketing and communications team.


Meet my fellow intern, Chris Williams from ECU.

 

Chris is majoring in journalism in ECU and is in his final year. David reckons we make a great team as I look at things from a PR perspective and Chris can do so from a journalist point of view. 

During the first two weeks of the internship, we were required to analyse the current communication plan for iVEC and update the plan accordingly to the events taking place at iVEC. Drawing on the knowledge that I have learnt from my PR units at uni, I was able to take on the task with confidence. We had to do a SWOT analysis and come up with communication goals for the next few months. Although this may seem dry to many, I felt this was a great 'warm-up' to understanding what the role of a communication manager is all about.

David, my marketing manager also made sure we understood what branding was all about. He provided us with materials that aided us to fully understand the concept of branding. 

It was a great to go back to understanding core concepts before starting on any major projects. Also it was a friendly working environment, and I felt so comfortable with regards to asking questions. The first two weeks of internship has provided me interesting insights to the real 'real-working-world'. One of the key factor that I took home was that, in order to draw up a communication plan, one has to engage in extensive research to fully analyse the company, in order to come up with a strong communication strategy. Every aspect of the communication strategy has to be covered in detail. There  are plenty more stuff that I would like to talk about in my upcoming posts. Stay tuned! 

Regards, 

Shaleeha Hajamaideen

16343652

Curtin University

Bentley Campus