His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam graced the Gurkha 200 Commemoration Parade at Taman Hj Sir Muda Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien yesterday

His Majesty graces the Gurkha 200 Commemoration Parade. Video by The Brunei Times.

His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam, graced the Gurkha 200 Commemoration Parade at Taman Hj Sir Muda Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien yesterday.

His Majesty is also the Minister of Defence and Supreme Commander of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF).

The parade marks two centuries of Gurkha service to the British Crown as well as the special relationship between the Royal Brunei Armed Forces and British Army.

The British High Commission here in a statement said the parade consisted of two contingents — one from the Brigade of Gurkhas and one from the Royal Brunei Land Forces, making up a total of 750 military personnel.

Queen Elizabeth II representative, Colonel Commandant Brigade of Gurkhas, General Sir Peter Wall, also attended the parade.

General Sir Wall said the parade demonstrated the special relationship between the Royal Brunei Armed Forces and British Army.

“The unique and enduring relationship between Brunei and the United Kingdom based on mutual respect, trust and close cooperation in education and defence has never been stronger,” he was quoted as saying in the British High Commission’s statement.

The Gurkhas have been based in Brunei since 1962, the statement added. According to the Gurkha 200 Commemoration website, the first battalion of The Royal Gurkha Rifles is serving in Brunei, where they are the army’s jungle warfare experts.

The booklet commemorating the event stated that the Brigade of Gurkhas’ role in Brunei is to conduct training in the tropical environment of the sultanate’s jungles as the wildlife provides the soldiers with challenging training opportunities. The Gurkha soldiers conduct regular arduous training with the Royal Brunei Land Force (RBLF) to enhance the capabilities of personnel of both contingents as well as foster close friendships with each other.

His Majesty the Sultan talking to the attendees

General Sir Peter Wall, Her Majesty the Queen’s Representative and Colonel Commandant, the Brigade of Gurkhas

A similar parade was last held in 1998 when His Majesty and Queen Elizabeth II inspected a parade of RBAF and the Brigade of Gurkhas at the Indoor Stadium in Berakas.

Before the parade began, His Majesty was accompanied by General Sir Wall to inspect the contingents.

Standing tall, the soldiers marched in unison while their proud family members took pictures. Members and family members of the British Forces Brunei and students of the Hornbill School in Seria also mingled with His Majesty after the parade.

A similar celebration was held earlier this year with a parade through the streets of central London in April and a pageant held on the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London in June. Text courtesy of Wail Wardi Ismail of The Brunei Times and images courtesy of Fazizul Haqimie.

Lim Chien Yee, Lim Chien Hau and Lim Wan Shen from team “Much Wow” in first place of the Cyber Battle: Capture the Flag with guest of honour Dato Paduka Hj Hamdan Hj Abu Bakar, Permanent Secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Shamsul Bahri Hj Kamis, CEO of ITPSS last Sunday

Team Copypaste came 2nd place and they will also head to Jakarta for the Cyber SEA Game

Nine teams competed in the “Cyber Battle: Capture the Flag” competition held at the Authority for Info-Communications Technology of Brunei Darussalam (AITI) headquarters on Sunday, with a team of three siblings walking away with the Grand Prize.

Present to hand over the prizes was the Permanent Secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Dato Paduka Hj Hamdan Hj Abu Bakar.

The team will also have the opportunity to represent Brunei in the Cyber SEA Game in Jakarta next month, alongside the first runner up, Team #copypaste.

The competition involved a Jeopardy style scoring system, where competing teams work on fixing security holes and solving challenges of network-based and web-based attacks in designated servers.
In his speech, ITPSS CEO Shamsul Bahri Hj Kamis said that the competition was held to educate the participants on how to strengthen and protect their networks.

He stressed that there will always be vulnerabilities in the web and networks, and so by holding the competition, the public will be more aware of the necessary actions that must be undertaken to defend IT networks.

Third place Tikana with their prizes

Team MUCH WOW did their homework and training through means of coCTF website to prep themselves for the tournament last Sunday and they deservedly won the “Cyber Battle: Capture the Flag”. I’m quite impressed by the turn out from the tournament and this shows that Brunei have the local talent especially in programming and computer science (does that make sense?).

The one-day competition was organised by the IT Protective Security Services Sdn Bhd (ITPSS).

His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam, UBD Chancellor, braving the crowd and taking photos with the graduates and parents at the UBD 27th convocation last week

Taken from The Brunei Times youtube channel

A total of 1,125 students from Universiti Brunei Darussalam’s third batch of its GenNext programme received their certificates at the varsity’s 27th convocation last Wednesday.

This year’s graduates included 20 PhD students, surpassing last year’s record of 12, UBD said.

The total number of graduating students comprised 379 Masters holders, 664 Bachelor graduates and 62 Diploma recipients. These also include 73 international students at UBD.

During the morning session of the convocation held at UBD’s Chancellor Hall, His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam, UBD Chancellor, presented certificates to PhD, Masters and Bachelor programme graduates.

The monarch also attended the afternoon session, where he presented certificates to graduates of Education Masters, Postgraduate Diploma, Advanced Diploma and Diploma programmes.

This year’s convocation also saw the first cohort of 15 graduates for the Master of Public Policy and Management (MPPM), consisting of graduates from East Asian Summit (EAS) participating countries – the Philippines, Singapore, Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Russia and Brunei.
The MPPM is a joint programme with leading public policy schools in the United States.

According to UBD, the unique interdisciplinary programme focuses on policy areas that are distinctive to Brunei, namely Islamic Governance, Energy Policy and Management and Environmental Policy and Management.

“It is hoped this interdisciplinary-based programme will be able to contribute to the development of future leaders of high calibre, apart from providing a network for them to interact and directly or indirectly raise the competitiveness of the sultanate internationally,’’ said UBD Vice-Chancellor Dato Paduka Dr Hj Zulkarnain Hj Hanafi. Text courtesy of Rachel Thien of The Brunei Times.

His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah presented a certificate to my friend, Pranika Lama

His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah presented a certificate to Alison

Hello Pranika 😀

Congratulations Gerald Goh

Maryam Rosli, Business Development & Marketing, Hj Mas Zuraime Hj Abdul Hamid, Head of BruCERT, Muhd Shahrul Fadillah Umar, IT Security Analyst. Shamsul Bahri, CEO of ITPSS and Caroline Ho, Business Development & Marketing during the briefing of the Cyber Battle: Capture The Flag recently

In the cyber sense, it’s a nicer way of saying penetrate the system or in our casual term, hacking.. I attended a press briefing on an upcoming Cyber Battle: Capture The Flag and it will be the first of its kind in Brunei. This is something very new and it will be interesting to see who participate in this competition. Of course, those who are showing interest would have prior knowledge of computing and programming as this is not those kind of console video games you will be playing.

The registration is already open and 10 tens will compete on the 11th October and their missions will be to exploit vulnerabilities on game servers, fix security holes, and defending their flags. The rules and regulations are already posted on their website and you can view them for any clarification.

So why this competition for the first time? Well, the main aim is to identify the winner from Brunei and represent for the ASEAN-Japan Cyber SEA Game which will be held in Jakarta this November. Only the top two teams will represent Brunei in Indonesia. This was announced by Shamsul Bahri, CEO of ITPSS.

The registration is open to Brunei citizens and also to permanent residents aged 30 years and below. You must enter as a team of 2 or 3 members. The closing date for the registration is 2nd October 2015. You can click here to register for the competition. You can also follow their IG for updates @brucert

The event is organised by IT Protective Security Services Sdn Bhd (ITPSS) in their role as Brunei Computer Emergency Response Team (BruCERT). This competition is also supported by Authority for Info-Communication Technology of Brunei (AITI).

Shamsul Bahri, CEO of ITPSS briefing the media on the competition

Caroline Ho revealed the prizes for the top 3 teams. Love the prizes too.

Check out the prizes for the top 3 teams

Muhd Shahrul Fadillah Umar explaining the flow of the competition

Representing Brunei – Lim Ao, Bridgette Ang, D-1 and What?!

They were happy to be on the international stage

They may have not won the finals but they stole the hearts of the audience. Last week, our local musicians belted it out at the ‘Be our Rock & Pop Soul’ Music Competition held at Ho Chin Minh City, Vietnam. Two representatives from Brunei made it to the finals – Lim Ao and What?! band. All in all, there were eleven musicians that flew off led by Lily Chiam and also accompanied by their music instructors.

This was the first time that Brunei participated in the competition and they managed to impressed the judges. Tyler Smith, the Senior Vice President of Trinity College in London, also had praised Bruneian performers. “They rocked the house right there,” he said, amid loud cheers from the audience. “The drums were in my face. I liked it.”

It’s good to see that Bruneians are able to perform on the international stage at a very young age. Keep the great work and also credit to the mentors. Images courtesy of Arthur John.

D-1 wooing the crowd with their rendition of “Crazy in love”

The grand winner from Thailand

Evan Chiam rocking the stage

Lim Ao electrifying the crowd with his solo performance