Dr Dayah

07/10/2025

[ Emceeing in DTC for AKEPT ]

The fifth series of AKEPT's Let's Talk About webinar series was a special one - it became a face-to-face panel session in conjuction with national-level Hari & Bulan Akademia celebrations at my uni.

It's my first time emceeing in the massive cavern of our incredibly beautiful main hall, Dewan Tuanku Canselor, in front of higher education big-wigs from all over the country. I was a nervous wreck beforehand, to say the least!

There were sooo many last-minute changes and mishaps, but we managed to sail through the troubled waters unscathed, and everybody was relatively happy with how the event went, so I'm beyond elated. My poker face is getting better and better each time 😂

Just one more LTA episode in December and that's it for me for this year's run. It's been an incredible ride, alhamdulillah ☺️

-- Watch --

Series 5 - Research and Innovation with (AI) : From Laboratory to Impact
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06BA8-qN7-k

-- Previous Episodes --

Series 4 - The Role of Leadership in Integrating Education, Social Innovation, and Sustainable Development for the Future of Higher Education
(No YT recording)

Series 3 - Leading Beyond Traditions : Disruptive Leadership for the Future of Higher Education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTIwsin9DZ4

-- Previous Write-up --

Series 2 - Cultivating Adaptive Leaders : Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Success
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1HjPLspKAM/

03/10/2025

Live now! Emceeing 😄

Send a message to learn more

19/09/2025

[ SUKANUN SOJOURN ]

SUKANUN marked my maiden return to competitive chess since Mar 2023 ❗

As if battling chess sharks from across the country isn't hard enough, I was also lugging my 18-month-old toddler along with me ‼️

It was our first ever long trip away from home, and I was really anxious. In the weeks leading up to the event, I kept telling everyone that handling the baby was gonna be much scarier than the chess 🤣

After packing half the house (it still wasn't enough!), we managed to arrive in Perak relatively incident-free, and she quickly got along with my female teammates a.k.a. her new housemates/babysitters 💖

Our playing venue was in a library, so for every game, I left her to be watched over by either her dad, our team manager, or our Sports Centre rep. She'd run around the entire floor and sometimes I'd hear her squeal every so often while I'm playing. In between rounds, I'd take her to the female surau or the secluded cafe to feed her.

The real drama started halfway through the event. My husband's leave from work didn't get approved, so he had to immediately hurry back to Nilai, leaving me and the baby in Perak 🥲 When he left, it really felt like the wind had been knocked out of my sails. To make things worse, the morning right before our last game, my baby took a tumble onto the bathroom floor when I wasn't paying attention, and she got a massive red bruise on her temple 😭 That was when I couldn't contain it all and just went bursting into tears. My teammates quickly came to the rescue, helping me compress the swelling. Right before the final round started, my manager told me it was OK if I didn't feel like playing, and I immediately cried again, so I decided not to play and forfeit the game - I wasn't in the right state of mind, to say the least.

She later drove us to the clinic to get the baby checked out. Fortunately, the swelling had died down, and the doctor gave her the all clear.

Our team ended up losing to the eventual champions, and I felt really guilty for abandoning the team. But a miracle happened and we still managed to stay within the Top 8 despite the loss, thus maintaining our chess team's points contribution to our uni. I've always been extremely proud of how we've consistently contributed Top 8 points for three consecutive SUKANUN editions now.

One day we'll score that podium finish 😊

22/08/2025

I'm emceeing!

AKEPT Lets Talk About – Webinar Series 4
(A Collaboration between AKEPT, USIM and SEAMEO RIHED)

“THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN INTEGRATING EDUCATION, SOCIAL INNOVATION, AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT FOR THE FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION"

Event Details:
🗓 Date: 22 August 2025 (Friday)
🕓 Time: 4.00 PM (Malaysia Time)
🌐 LIVE on AKEPT’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/akeptmohe

Pre-registration: https://tinyurl.com/preregistrationAKEPTLTAseries4

All are invited. Mark your calendars and join us live!

20/07/2025

[ Internet Multimedia A242 - Finale ]

This year I was back at the wheel after a one-year break, and it was just as magnificent as I imagined it would be.

I just love this subject so much ❤️

I trialled our AI in Multimedia chapter and got encouraging feedback. Pendakwah Teknologi's return as guest speaker was short(!) but undeniably sweet - the students love him and he's amazing as always. Prof Rosalina's stint as the lab instructor in her penultimate semester before retirement was incredible. It meant my students had the utmost privilege of gaining a treasure trove of life lessons in her signature loving motherly style. I also redesigned ALL THE SLIDES FOR THE ENTIRE SEMESTER which means I can coast from here on out 😂

The students were excellent - lively, jovial, intelligent, funny, resourceful. They were good sports throughout all my lessons and surprising lab tasks, including when they had to read out loud together, just like in school 🤣

Recently, I was informed that I have two more runs of this subject before it gets retired for good. It's bittersweet, but I'm actually excited - I have two more years to make the subject the best it can be, and there's plenty of room for improvement.

Especially since this cohort *failed* to score even a single 100% correct on Mentimeter 😝

Thank you boys and girls. The pleasure's all mine 🤗

---

PT's visit: https://www.facebook.com/pendakwahteknologi/posts/pfbid0VyaTpvZhMpaqgyLGhRroH9FpT4aLnjov5jYsts8x1Vr2BfcyyZaJhn2MoG1AqaTLl

Previous recap: https://www.facebook.com/dr.dayah/posts/pfbid0TybXrTPwbBJn522cjKDoCfKNJwR8Wxb5Dxk5qvDM78Qomvyhy9UksQupmwcdvx4Dl

16/07/2025

Today's the first proper PhD supervision meeting with Indonesian student Aldo. Three supervisors for one student, he's in for an adventure 😆

May his progress be swift 😁

13/07/2025

[ Swiss Manager Resources List ]

If you're a rookie pairing arbiter, here's a handy list of FREE Swiss Manager resources for you to explore 👇🏼

-----

📑 Swiss Manager's Official References 📑

1️⃣ Manual
- Help (or F1 key) in the Swiss Manager software, or installer downloadable here: https://swiss-manager.at/unload/SwissManagerHelpENGSetup.exe

The Help files are massive, extensive, and probably beyond the comprehension of mere mortals 😂 but it has complete screenshots and essays of what things are and what to do.

2️⃣ User Guide
- English version:https://swiss-manager.at/unload/swiss_manager_user_guide.pdf
- Indonesian version:https://swiss-manager.at/unload/swiss_manager_user_guide_INA.pdf
- Other languages: https://swiss-manager.at/download.aspx?lan=1

More user-friendly and condensed than the Help files, and arguably the go-to manual for most Swiss Manager users. I've been told that my classes are exploiting and making money off of those who aren't bothered to read this free User Manual 😑 Clearly not my target market, but for the sake of transparency, here you all go, have at it 🤭 No Malay version yet, so Indonesian is closest.

3️⃣ FAQ
- Official FAQ: https://s3.chess-results.com/FAQ.aspx?SNode=S0

If there's a burning issue that's messing you up for no reason, it's probably in the FAQs 😆 Issues like the installer triggering anti-virus warnings, or why Swiss Manager isn't available on Macs and phone apps are all succinctly - and sometimes hilariously - covered in there. Also includes Chess-Results info in addition to Swiss Manager.

🎥 Malay Tutorial Videos 🎥

4️⃣ Cikgu Arif's Playlist
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcYWj7c7g1g4a31xRoFC9z_8l51QAr7vZ

Step-by-step demos all the way from installation to generating results, including customizing Chess-Results.

-----

Happy pairing 🤗

07/07/2025

🎓 SALURAN KOMERSIAL KE USIM!

Tak dapat tempat melalui UPU? Jangan risau!
USIM PACE kini membuka permohonan TAMHIDI (Asasi) Saluran Komersial untuk anda yang ingin teruskan cita-cita dalam bidang:

✅ Syariah Undang-undang
✅ Perakaunan & Muamalat
✅ Sains Fizikal & Teknologi
✅ Perubatan, Pergigian & Sains
📌 Tanpa melalui UPU
📌 Tanpa subsidi kerajaan
📌 2 semester sahaja (1 tahun)
📌 Yuran bermula RM1,700 sebulan
📅 Tarikh tutup permohonan: 20 JULAI 2025
📲 Mohon sekarang di: https://eug.usim.edu.my/
📥 Atau imbas QR di poster untuk borang & brosur.
✨ Pilih jalan pintas ke universiti – Daftar melalui saluran komersial hari ini!

04/07/2025

[ Power BI Workshop at FKP ]

This morning, I had the utmost pleasure and honour of delivering a two-hour seminar on Social Media Analytics using Power BI. The participants consisted of staff mostly from three different faculties and departments.

This seminar was years in the making 😆 When I was first approached about delivering the topic of social media analytics a few years ago, back then I proposed the use of Power BI because it was the in-thing for data analytics at the time. However when it came time to do the seminar, I was smack in the middle of my pregnancy, so in my wheezing whale-like state, I asked to postpone. Fast forward to today, I finally presented what I could, albeit under quite unfortunate circumstances.

When I proposed Power BI back then, our uni still had relatively abundant access to Microsoft's analytics functions, but nowadays, a lot of it got cut due to rising costs, so trying to finagle an entire class to jump through various hoops just to gain free trial access was painful to say the least 🫠 But I'm quite proud that we managed to slog through, and I didn't end up being the only person able to do the demos. The seminar didn't turn into a show-and-tell, and the hands-on stuff was adequately so, which is a win 🤭

The social media data collection scenario also changed a lot between now and then - it used to be hard to collect real-time data but still doable, but nowadays it's just downright hostile for researchers with limited funds. Access to social media data in bulk nowadays involves expensive subscription fees, and the usual go-around is to scrape the social media servers for content, but this normally breaks their Terms of Service, and requires quite in-depth coding knowledge to handle properly.

Today's seminar was more about using Power BI's Text Analytics function on a pre-populated Excel file rather than capturing content real-time, which isn't ideal. There were numerous technical issues that we had to deal with along the way also. I had predicted that I'd take up the entire two-hour slot just fighting fires. The general consensus from the anonymous feedback was positive, but I still can't shake the feeling that I could've done the entire seminar a little bit better. For a first time it's not bad though 😊

Thank you FKP for having me - I had a lot of fun 😁

23/06/2025

I'm emceeing! 🤩
Catch us this Thursday 2pm 🤗

📣 AKEPT Lets Talk About – Webinar Series 3
(A Collaboration between AKEPT, USIM and SEAMEO RIHED)

Title: Leading Beyond Traditions: Disruptive Leadership for the Future of Higher Education

Event Details:

🗓 Date: 26th June 2025 (Thursday)
🕓 Time: 2.00 PM (Malaysia Time)
🌐 LIVE on USIMTV YouTube and AKEPT Malaysia Facebook
📌 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/
📌 AKEPT Malaysia Facebook: https://fb.com/AKEPTMalaysia

Distinguished Panelists:

👤 Professor Sattar Bawany
Chief Executive Officer, Disruptive Leadership Institute LLC, New York, NY (DLI) and Professor of Practice in Disruptive Leadership, Asia e University

👤 Dato’ Seri Ir. Dr. Zaini Ujang
Chairman of the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) Council

👤 Ms. Azlina Kamal
Education Specialist for UNICEF

🔹All are invited🔹
🔹Join us.. Attend and Earn CPD Points🔹

16/06/2025

[ MBPJ 2025 ]

Four of us from Catur Gomen Negeri Sembilan (CGN9) trekked up to Petaling Jaya to become arbiters for a 500-strong chess tournament last weekend. This was the second edition of the same tournament that was organized last year by MBPJ and Cerdik Catur Enterprise, who graciously invited us back again this time around. Including this one, it's the third event working with them over the last three years.

To be honest, I wasn't so certain that I'd get that callback for this year's event. During last year's edition, I made monumental mistakes, and it didn't help that there were many other things that went wrong throughout the day. It felt exponentially worse because it's not "my" event but somebody else's, so I felt really guilty. When I left the venue last year, it felt like it'd be my last time.

When they sent the invite, I was surprised, thrilled, relieved, and terrified in equal measures. I made damn sure I wasn't gonna make the same mistakes again this time around 😂

This year, I was the Pairing Arbiter in charge of the U14 and U17 categories, handling roughly 180 players in total. The event went relatively well, and all issues that popped up were settled with minimal fuss - it was great 🤩 Certainly felt like I successfully redeemed myself for last year's cock-ups.

One of the highlights was when I got Soh Wai Ching - the current World Champion in towerrunning - to sign my chess board 🥰 I wanted to take a selfie with him too, but I had already accosted him multiple times at that point trying to get that autograph, so my cowardly self didn't push for one 🫠

The sweetest highlight was when the big boss said they're planning to invite us back for another mega event in a few months' time 💃🏻

Alhamdulillah 💝

30/04/2025

[ Working with AKEPT - Again ]

I had the privilege of being the emcee for AKEPT's latest webinar series hosted by USIM. It's a joint venture between AKEPT, USIM and SEAMIO RIHED, with international speakers on the roster. The series is meant to be co-organized on a rotational basis by different departments and faculties within USIM, with another four webinars in the pipeline.

The webinar itself was a blast. The panellists were amazing - such great personalities to talk to. We set up camp up at the uni's green screen studio which was a complete "jakun" deer-in-headlights moment for me. What excited me the most was the opportunity to use the uni's live Streamyard dashboard first-hand. This was immensely handy - it's just in time for my lecture on livestreaming next week 😂 I took a tonne of photos and videos of the entire setup, and I was recording things flying across the screens. All perfect materials to embed in my lecture slides 🤭

It also felt incredibly powerful to have the ability to take over the uni's official livestream and do whatever I wanted to do 😈

(I behaved, though.)

Right before we went live, we had a short welcoming spiel from the AKEPT rep, who mentioned, "Hi Dr. Dayah, so you're new to AKEPT," and I just grinned. In fact I had spent a good five years grinding for AKEPT as the Editor-in-Chief of the now-defunct LEADER Magazine, wrote up numerous events and articles as their rapporteur, and also assisted with the editing of some of their books. But after many staff changes in AKEPT, I guess the slate is now clean 😉

I never thought I'd be working for AKEPT again, but here we are, locked in for the whole webinar series as emcee.

Jodoh kuat.

Watch 👉🏼 Cultivating Adaptive Leaders : Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Success (YouTube Livestream @ USIMTV)
https://www.youtube.com/live/vmtPv3pATis