Nu 6 by CTG, Unified School System

NU6 Paper 3:

UNIFIED SCHOOL SYSTEM:

Bridging Students - School - Parents

By: R090205 (CTG)

Working as a School Administrator at the same time as an instructor needs a lot of patience and perseverance to overcome pressure not only from the students but most especially from the parents. Most if not all parents would want to know (a) the whereabouts of their sons/daughters, (b) if their sons/daughters were able to pay the school fees with the money they gave and (c) the academic status and grades of their sons/daughters to verify if they are studying or not. Parents being involved in the studies of their sons/daughters are common to all levels of education from preschool to high school and even on tertiary level. However, parents with sons/daughters studying on tertiary levels, such as in Colleges or Universities, are letting their sons/daughters to owe their responsibilities and obligations when it comes to their studies. The level of maturity and thinking of all high school graduates are expected to be ready to take the commitment as responsible individual. However, this is not the case in our school. Even our school, as Technical and Vocational Institute (TVI), is considered a tertiary level; we often experience parents who eagerly want to be involved in the studies of their sons/daughters.

Every now and then parents/guardians would call or even visit our school just to check or monitor their sons/daughters. They would even want to know if the student is already in the school or if classes are already dismissed. When it comes to school fees, there were also cases that parents would insist or even willing to argue with the accounting department that they already paid their obligations by giving the money to their sons/daughters but the truth is that the student did not settle the payment obligations and maybe even spent the money on other things. It is just natural for parents to know if sons/daughters are truly studying by knowing their grades which most of the students are keeping their grades from their parents.

These things might sound a little exaggerated, but believe me, these things happen in our school a lot.

With these, we are thinking of putting up a Unified School System, which is not in use in any school that we know of. In this kind of system, all of the above concerns will be addressed.

Below are the following features that our new school system can offer:

1.     STUDENTS' DAILY ENTRY and EXIT MONITORING (Real Time Email and/or SMS Notifications with Pictures)

·        Bona fide students will be allowed to enter the schools not only by using their respective ID's but also using biometric authentication. Through this way, only bona fide students and legitimate visitors will be allowed to enter the school, thus, securing the school premise from any unwanted visitors.

·        All students will be securely monitored using CCTV cameras and they will be taken pictures to be stored in the database upon they enter and exit the school. Parents will be notified, in real time through email and/or SMS, of the daily entry and exit of their sons/daughters from the school. In this way, parents will be at ease to know that their sons/daughters arrived safely to the school and they will be able to know that their sons/daughters already left the school.

 4

2.     SCHOOL PAYMENT MONITORING (Real Time Email and/or SMS Notifications)

·        Parents will be notified of any payment transactions. In this way, parents will know if their sons/daughters were able to settle their accounts from the money that they gave.

·        Parents will be notified as well of their outstanding payment obligations so for them to be aware and eventually prepare to pay on time.

3.     STUDENTS' GRADES MONITORING (Email and/or SMS Notifications)

·        Upon the submission of final grades of the instructors every after semester, parents will be given a copy of grades of sons/daughters through email and/or SMS. In this way, parents will always be aware of all the grades that their sons/daughters got from their subjects. Students will be restricted from keeping secret of their grades to their parents.4

In this system, parents will be given their respective user account for them to be able to log in and check the different features of the system online. If the parents are not used to operate a computer, they will still be notified through SMS. However, the use of these features of the system is optional. Parents may still opt not to use the system if they are not willing to.

We hope and pray that this Unified School System will be a viable solution to address the concerns of most parents. 

NU6 Paper 2: What pisses you off at the mall? What do you suggest?

NU6 Paper 2: What pisses you off at the mall? What do you suggest?

By: R090205 (CTG)

Recently, I have read an intriguing and doubtful story circulating in Facebook about a certain man wisely enough to find ways to park his Ferrari on a secured place and yet paying only a minimal amount. Here is the story:

An Indian man walks into a bank in New York City and asks for the loan officer. He tells the loan officer that he is going to India on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000.
The bank officer tells him that the bank will need some form of security for the loan, so the Indian man hands over the keys and documents of new Ferrari parked on the street in front of the bank. He produces the title and everything checks out. The loan officer agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan.
The bank's president and its officers all enjoy a good laugh at the Indian for using a $250,000 Ferrari as collateral against a $5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then drives the Ferrari into the bank's underground garage and parks it there.
Two weeks later, the Indian returns, repays the $5,000 and the interest, which comes to $15.41.The loan officer says, "Sir, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out and found that you are a multi-millionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow "$5,000"?
The Indian replies: "Where else in New York City can I park my car for two weeks for only $15.41 and expect it to be there when I return"
This is a true incident and the Indian is none other than... "VIJAY MALLYA"

Upon reading the story, I must admit that I was totally amazed and felt awe with the way the man able to think differently that most people could not even think of. However, after a while, I realized that the story is too good to be true, considering that he was able to trick a well thought and proven banking loan process. As far as I know, there is no bank would even try to go through the trouble of making a loan just to earn a very minimal amount of interest. Besides, the bank did check the profile of the borrower only after the loan was granted, which in fact, the bank should have checked the person's capacity to pay before the approval of any loan.

With this, I tried to do some research about the veracity of the story starting with the name of the said millionaire. I found out that Vijay Mallya is a known millionaire from India. According to Forbes.com, as of March 2011, Mallya, is worth US $1.4 billion, ranked 879 in The Forbes World Billionaires Ranking, and 38th in India. This only proves that the man in the story is a real person. However, this still doesn't validate the story.

After further research, I found out that the story was indeed just another version of what was originally as a joke. The story was a popular New York City parking joke dated back in print to at least in 1997.[1]

Nevertheless, whether the story is true or not, the story only points out how the millionaire mind-set works. They are quick to look for the best deals and would even dare to act on it just to achieve their goal.

The millionaire in the story only wanted the most secured place for his beloved Ferrari at the cheapest cost. What more for the ordinary people?

Did you ever experience having a hard time looking for a parking slot in a busy mall? I guess, at some point, you've thought of at least having an assurance and hope not to take too much time of getting a parking slot once you were given the parking ticket at the entrance.

It would be best for the mall goers who usually park their vehicles in the mall to enjoy the benefit of getting an assured parking slot upon entering the parking area.

In line with this, at some point in time before, movie houses were accepting people even the cinemas were already jam-packed and forced some to just sit on the stairs or even stand the whole time. Until such, the system was improved and movie goers are now enjoying the convenience and privilege of reserving their seats without worrying of having no seat at all. Because of the rejuvenation of the system, people now may even do online reservations and payment for movie houses.

This kind of innovation of system in movie houses can also be applied to parking system. Parking systems nowadays in some malls were already an improved system of before, in which it uses automatic counters that monitors the number of vehicles coming in and going out. Some even uses sensors for each parking slot that using green and red light indicators to show whether the slot is vacant or not. These features help a lot, but only on some points. The system still doesn't address the concerns of assuring the vehicle owners of a specific parking slot upon entering the parking area and will not take too much time of finding a parking slot.

With this in mind, I have thought of applying the system of the movie houses to parking system in which the system can assign an available parking slot upon entering the parking area. In this way, the only person entitled to park his vehicle is the person assigned to that slot.

There are some limitations for this kind of feature. But to make it more sophisticated and avoid any room for loopholes, the system can be improved on not only assign specific parking slot, but also restrict other vehicle owners to just occupy any slots they want by adding more security measures of sensors that can monitor specific vehicle on the specific slot.

This might sound costly for the mall owners to invest in this kind of system. However, the huge amount of money that they are getting from high-cost parking fees alone could justify the investment of having a good parking system, in which certainly gives value propositions of convenience and satisfaction to their customers.

This in turn, in the long run, would entice more customers to pay a visit to their malls and would certainly not give the hassle of taking too much on looking for a parking slot especially during mall sales.

I'm sure, in God's time, this kind of innovation in parking system will eventually happen. If it happens in my lifetime, I would consider myself as lucky just to experience such innovative way. :D
3.0
________________________________

[1] http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tasteless.jokes/browse_thread/thread/c2e8a8d8de8db7a5/a2b3692bdb202672?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=Park+New+York+Loan+Bank#a2b3692bdb202672

NU 6 by CTG, Serendipity Walk

Serendipity Walk

by: R090205

Ever since before, I was fascinated by the fact that many food kiosks have been successful food business. Anyone who wishes to venture into food business with small capital to invest, food kiosk is the one suited for this requirement compared to putting up a restaurant which needed higher capital thus exposing to a higher risk. Many of these food kiosks are usually located at high volume traffic of people like supermarkets, movie houses, bus and LRT/MRT stations and malls. As I observed, many of these food kiosks are innovated street foods before such as fish balls, popcorn, cotton candy, taho, siomai and even green mango/singkamas with bagoong which is a very recent concept.

I remember these foods when I was still young in which these were being sold only by vendors roaming house to house. I was motivated to wonder of other concepts that are not yet offered in the market. So as I roam around a certain mall, I thought of the following ideas for a food concept:

1.      Makisushi Rolls Pinoy Version

Japanese food inspired suited for Filipino taste with different varieties of Filipino dishes such as adobo presented in makisushi rolls.

2.      PutoPao

Puto inspired by siopao presented in well-presented packaging with different flavors.

3.      Bananaque and Kamoteque

The ordinary bananaque and kamoteque that are not on sticks instead will be offered as finger foods.  These will be sliced on bite size.

4.      Ice Buko and Ice Candy with various flavors

The well-known ice buko and ice candy are no longer be found nowadays. These products should be relaunched and repackaged in such a way that these can attract new market especially kids nowadays who are not familiar with these and at the same time those people who used to patronize these products before.