Mr. Elanjelian Venugopal, Head of Project, Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI) of the Malaysian Community Education Foundation (MCEF) initiated formation of a committee to develop a sustainable ICT programme for Tamil Schools. The committee members were Mr. Subramaniam Ponnusamy(First Chairman) Mr. Elanjelian Venugopal, Mr.Gunasegaran Kandaswamy, Mr.Gunasekaran Karapaya, Mr. Poobalan Murugesu and Mr Arimugan Yegambaram
The committee has formulated the Programme called Program Titian Digital and Port Klang Hindu Youth Organization (PKHYO) was entrusted to spearhead the programme nationwide.
Program Titian Digital (PTD) was launched in our first school - SJKT Bukit Rajah, Klang, Selangor in April 2009. The ICT Lab in this first school was sponsored by Malaysian Community & Education Foundation (MCEF).
First PTD Annual Report (2010) was published and distributed to sponsors, well- wishers and other stakeholders. Through this Annual Report, the stakeholders were updated on the financial status, development and implementation of PTD.
A team from International Telecommunication Union-Universiti Utara Malaysia Asia Pacific Centre of Excellence for Rural ICT (ITU-UUM ASP COE) researches conducted a case study at the selected PTD schools in rural areas and gave a score of 93% for the programme implementation. These findings were presented at the ITU Workshop held in Bangkok on 23 May 2011.
PTD Student Module (Level 1), which is used in our teaching and learning was officially launched by YB. Shuhaimi Hj Shafiei, Sri Muda State Assemblyman in the opening ceremony of SJKT Emerald PTD-ICT Lab on 9 October 2011. (Level 1 Student Modules were distributed to schools early 2011)
Meeting and discussion were held on 3rd September 2011 with software engineers and subject experts from Chennai, Hyderabad, Brisbane and Malaysia. This created an opportunity for the PTD team and ICT tutors to clear their doubts, mainly on technical matters and Open Source Software usage.
A paper on PTD was presented in the GOPIO International Conference in Kuala Lumpur by Mr. Gunasegaran Kandaswamy, Chairman of PTD. In 2012, PTD also received a special grant from the Prime Minister’s Department to set up 20 PTD-ICT Labs in Tamil Schools nationwide.
INFITT Malaysia & University Malaya in collaboration with PTD-HYO Port Klang organised the 12th International Tamil Internet Conference (TIC 2013) in Kuala Lumpur from 15-18 August 2013. Delegates comprise of IT experts, researchers, scholars, lecturers & teachers, school & university/college students and members of NGOs from various country participated in the conference. The conference created a platform for the delegates to exchange knowledge, technologies and also to discuss on the way forward. The conference was officiated by YB. Dato Sri Shabery Cheek, Minister of Communication and Multimedia, representing the honourable Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Seminar on Open Source and Tamil Wikipedia was jointly organised by PTD, INFITT Malaysia and PJ Youth Bell Club in Tan Sri Soma Auditorium, KL on 31 May 2014 and in SJKT St. Teresa Hall, Taiping on 1 June 2014. Participants were able to get exposure on Open Source technology and Tamil Wikipedia.
PTD initiated and for the first time organised the State & National Level ICT Competition for Tamil Schools. The competition which comprises ICT Quiz, Drawing, 2D Animation, Website Designing and Assembling & Dissembling Computers were participated by 88 Tamil Schools with 972 students nationwide. This was a very good platform for students to demonstrate their knowledge, skills and talents.
PTD embarked two new enhancement courses – Mobile Apps Development and 3D Animation. As a pilot project PTD conducted Mobile Apps Development course is SJKT Simpang Lima ICT Lab with 20 participants and 3D Animation in HYO Port Klang’s Vijayaratnam ICT Lab with also 20 participants. Both the trainings were participated actively by the students and they were able to produce creative and quality outputs. These motivated us to take both the courses to more students out there.
Students under the PTD programme were encouraged to participate in the Hour Of Code campaign, a campaign launched by the US President, Barack Obama in US. This campaign is to encourage young kids to get exposure to coding so that in future they will become creators and not merely users. A total of 10,000 PTD students participated in the one hour coding activity through this campaign.
Students from the PTD programme for the first time participated in the National Level Beaver Competition and International Level ICAS Competition besides participating in the National Level ICT Competition organised by PTD. They were able to show their talents and win some medals and certificates.
The Monash University conducted an impact study on PTD to find out the Efficacy of ICT for Primary School Children.
Two of our ex-PTD students were chosen among the 50 selected students to join the Digital Ninja programme under the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) in 2019. They are Bro. Thavanesan Kesawan (ex-student of SJKT Ldg. Senawang, Negeri Sembilan) and Bro. Jitesh Moganaraja (ex-student of SJKT Ldg. Wellesley, Kedah). Digital Ninja is a national ICT elite talent development programme under the sponsorship of the government for 5 years. The participants will receive ICT technical training, software development training, direct exposure to ICT industry and opportunity to get full/partial scholarship to pursue degree in ICT.
Pertubuhan Titian Digital Malaysia(PTDM) was formed to take over PTD from PKHYO. It was done to ensure PTD is taken to higher level of operation and bring more benefits to its beneficiaries.
Pertubuhan Titian Digital Malaysia has taken over implementation of PTD from PKHYO. Due to the pandemic COVID-19, PTD has to follow the new norm. Besides the classes were conducted online, the National Level ICT Competition which consists of ICT Quiz, Drawing, 2D Animation, Scratch and Website Designing were also conducted online.