As part of our community development, Rentwise initiates and runs CSR programmes. Semi-government aided schools or NGOs are invited to speak to us about their IT infrastructure requirements. Over the years, we have helped create or upgrade the existing ICT facilities of a number of needy schools and NGOs. Many of these programmes are run in conjunction with our corporate clients who partner with us to monetize and revitalise their retired IT equipment for worthy community and youth development causes through the process of Remanufacturing.
With the Government’s commitment to embrace and adopt digitization, the 1BestariNet Project, headed by MOE, was initiated. This programme connects government schools across Malaysia via the Internet to provide an online learning platform in conjunction with the Frog VLE (Virtual Learning Environment). This is in line with Improving Student Outcomes (NKRA).
One of our Company’s core values is ‘Self Development’. This drive coupled with a self-sustaining momentum is essential to empowering our youth to advance into the global technological and digital arena. Rentwise is continuously committed to enhance the education infrastructure with comprehensive digital platforms.
Since our first successful launch of a CSR programme in 2012, Rentwise has since provided over 310 sets of Remanufactured computers, benefiting over 8,200 students across various institutions and organisations.
Rentwise is happy to work together with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) to extend our coverage to identified schools in Kota Bahru, Kelantan.
In our latest project, we are working to enhance the existing infrastructure of the following 5 schools.
1. SJK (C) Chung Cheng, Kota Bharu 2. SMJK Chung Cheng, Kota Bharu 3. SJK (C) Peir Chih, Kota Bharu 4. SJK (C) Chung Hwa, Kota Bharu 5. SMJK Chung Hwa, Kota Bharu
Each school from the above list will get 5 Desktops and 5 Laptops which will be used in their ICT Labs, classroom or libraries. This comes as a huge benefit to the almost 6,500 students collectively who will now be able to unlock unlimited potential in their access and journey to obtain knowledge for an enhanced e-learning experience. We hope to identify a few more schools in Kelantan that will significantly benefit from our CSR program.
In a fast-paced world where time is money, having sound situational awareness of your organisation’s IT assets is crucial to continuous smooth operations. Knowing what’s where and having your finger on the pulse of an active and growing IT infrastructure means less time wasted responding to rapid technological advances.
Managing your IT infrastructure is akin to possessing visibility over the entire “IT landscape” thereby allowing you to track equipment, software licenses and critical security patches. The enormity of this task is further amplified with the presence of mobile users. With this information made available as a live tool (Rentwise’s cost effective and simple-to-use Asset Management solution), clients can be nimble in decision-making.
In short, we help you overcome the abovementioned daily challenges in managing your IT infrastructure, thereby allowing you to focus on core revenue-generating tasks.
As we move quickly into the second half of the year, it’s time for a much-needed break and get-together with great food and company during our Hari Raya open house at Rentwise office.
Recent months have seen two major cyber-attacks by ransomware. To protect your business from ransomware is to protect your investment in the invaluable and irrecoverable resource: time.
We know it can be quite difficult to get a grip at the true scale of the devastation that ransomware wrecks. Hence, we have attempted to distill the essence of what a ransomware is, and the ways you can get about protecting yourself from it, in a simple to understand infographic.
Recent months have seen two major cyber-attacks by ransomware. To protect your business from ransomware is to protect your investment in the invaluable and irrecoverable resource: time.
WannaCry was the first to hit. Despite the funny name, it is a very aggressive piece of ransomware, taking businesses around the world at unawares on May 12th, infecting 200,000 computers in just 2 days. The attack caused major disruption to hospitals, telecom companies and gas and utilities plants with one of the worst hit organizations being the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.
The second was Petya, which caused damage in organizations like WPP, Mondelez, DLA Piper and Maersk in Europe and the US. As it originated in the Ukraine, many of the country’s organizations were also affected – the government, banks, state power utilities, transport systems and even the radiation monitoring system in Chernobyl.
Ransomware is a type of malware that blocks access to a computer system until a ransom is paid. Traditionally, ransomware is spread by getting victims to click on a link or download it by mistake. Once it’s in the victim’s computer, it locks all files. The attackers then demand payment, warning that files will otherwise be deleted.
This kind of attack is particularly dangerous for businesses because it takes just one employee to become infected for the attack to spread in the entire network, and sometimes even across countries to other subsidiaries, without any user interaction.
WannaCry and Petya are even more dangerous because they have a “worm” component that exploits a vulnerability in the Windows operating system, a flaw that allows a remote attacker to run code on a vulnerable computer and plant ransomware without any human and local action.
This unprecedented behavior makes it the perfect tool to attack specific environments or infrastructures, such as servers running a vulnerable version of the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol.
These attacks demonstrate just why it’s so important that businesses take steps to protect themselves from ransomware. After all, in this challenging economic climate, who can afford the luxury of downtime?
At Rentwise, we understand that you need hassle-free solutions that work to defend your business. That’s why we provide comprehensive, end-to-end green IT infrastructure solutions that are not just environmentally friendly, but secure; so that your data remains safe, and your business operations, uninterrupted.
To serve your needs better, we’ve partnered with Bitdefender and Cibecs and bundled all our rental computers and laptops with Bitdefender Antivirus and Cibecs data protection software. Further to that, our network solutions come equipped with WatchGuard Firewall.
WatchGuard’s Total Security Suite guards your servers and networks while Bitdefender and Cibecs protect your end-points. As an end-to-end green IT solution partner, Rentwise recognizes the importance of providing a secured green IT infrastructure that spans the depth and breadth of a business operation. This is achieved at the forefront with Bitdefender and Cibecs protecting the end users from any immediate threats and helps in data restoration respectively, while WatchGuard scans the back-end by monitoring the broadband traffic exchanges in the data centre via its ATP and APT technologies. We believe this comprehensive configuration stands as a potent combination to combat ransomware.
To this date, all Bitdefender customers have been successfully protected from WannaCry. Bitdefender’s next-generation machine-learning and memory introspection technologies ensure that customers will be similarly protected from any other such attack. Also, Bitdefender’s unique and revolutionary Hypervisor Introspection technology is able to protect computers from the EternalBlue exploitation technique, which is used by both WannaCry and Petya.
Because paying the ransom is no guarantee of businesses getting their files back, what’s needed is a reliable and secure backup system offered by Cibecs. Cibecs is an effective endpoint backup & data protection solution for business, which is widely used and trusted by thousands of companies worldwide. It’s also easy to deploy and manage and equips IT with a single solution for complete end-user data protection.
Being protected from end to end is your best defense against ransomware!
So talk to us today for the best solutions to protect your business from ransomware.
Rentwise Malaysia partnered with Sunway College in a joint CSR program to equip SK St Mary’s computer lab in January 2017. 30 desktop computers were donated to the school to benefit more than 900 students who would use them for their computer learning lessons. These used desktop computers by Sunway College were refurbished and remanufactured by Rentwise Malaysia before being deployed in SK St Mary’s computer lab. This has been a long awaited moment as the school has been without a computer lab for the past 10 years. Rentwise continuously seeks partnership with corporate organisations to retrieve old used IT equipment to be remanufactured and donated to the less privileged for a good cause.
In staying true to its vision of providing access to information technology learning for underprivileged communities, Rentwise Malaysia has once again demonstrated that a committed CSR program can be both “green” and meaningful to society.
Working with Macquarie Malaysia, 20 remanufactured computers were given a new lease of life and deployed over 7 centres of the National Autism Society of Malaysia (NASOM) located at the Klang valley.
As a collaborative CSR program with Macquarie Malaysia, the desktop computers were handed over to Rentwise Malaysia. Drawing on its specialized expertise in remanufacturing used IT hardware, these computers were cosmetically enhanced by Rentwise. After being subjected to rigorous testing and repair procedures, the condition of the computers was restored to as good as new. This joint CSR effort between Macquarie and Rentwise saw the largest deployment of computers at NASOM Titiwangsa branch – where 6 computers were setup for students and 2 for teachers.
The National Autism Society of Malaysia (NASOM) is a society formed in 1986 by a group of parents and professionals with the aim of delivering lifelong services to the community of persons suffering from autism. It is a recognized charitable organisation and it strives to provide a range of support services to assist people with autism, especially children and their immediate family members. NASOM depends greatly on the support, sponsorships and donations from well wishers and corporate sponsors to help them fund their operations and activities.
Since its inception in 2013, NASOM Titiwangsa has been without computers. The centre has about 60 students aged between 4-21 years old and is run by 17 staff including the centre’s Co-Ordinator, Mano. These donated computers will be used by the students to surf the Internet and access educational applications such as Microsoft Word and Powerpoint.
According to Mano, autistic children have short attention span and various behavioral and communication issues. As visually inclined children, they respond well to animated materials and photos. These effective means help enhance their learning experience. Through this method, the children will not be easily bored and are more likely to sit in front of the computer for a long time.
“The use of technology such as the desktop computers provide a good solution to address personality traits exhibited by autistic children,” says Mano. NASOM Titiwangsa has a range of mild, moderate and severe cases of autism. The donated computers will be used to play educational songs and games to cater to this wide range of children with special needs. “In this centre, highly functional or mildly autistic children who are in the ‘mainstream inclusion’ program stand to benefit the most from using these computers,“ Mano adds.
The centre has a merit program to reinforce good behavior whereby children who behave themselves will be rewarded with 45 minutes of computer sessions during which they can use the computer for whatever purposes they wish. These children normally have sensory problems; hence in order to calm them down, the computer is used as a tool to reduce undesirable behavior.
“We are indeed very grateful for these donated computers by Macquarie and Rentwise because they will help enhance our students’ learning skills, reduce unwanted behavior, improve attention span and increase their focusing abilities,” Mano enthuses. Teachers would also be able to use the computers to prepare teaching materials.
Rentwise Malaysia is certainly hopeful that the children of Nasom Titiwangsa will greatly benefit from using these computers as IT skills will lead to a much improved quality of life.
More importantly, it’s been a truly rewarding endeavor as not only the remanufactured computers been used for a good cause; their very extended life span for this purpose will definitely make for a greener environment.
Rentwise Malaysia looks forward to partnering with organisations that wish to dispose of their old IT equipment. Our technical expertise and DOE-compliant remanufacturing and IT disposal processes enable us to refresh and extend the life span of old IT equipment for a greener world. Corporate organisations who wish to contribute to this CSR initiative or schools who are interested to apply as our program participants can get in touch with us.
One more year in advance, beyond our 15 Years Anniversary last year; Rentwise celebrates this year of the Rooster in 2017 with great hopes of prosperity, joy and good health. A lion dance troupe joined in the celebration and had loads of fun with Rentwisers.
SK St. Mary School received 30 remanufactured desktop computers in early 2017 as part of Rentwise Malaysia’s joint CSR program with the Sunway Education group. This momentous occasion was celebrated with an opening ceremony of the school’s computer lab.
The setting up of this computer lab was also made possible by donated computers from other parties involved; 5 desktops from Felda ProData and 10 desktops from Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The desktop computers supplied to Rentwise by the Sunway Education Group were subjected to high standards of remanufacturing process, involving cosmetic refurbishment, change of components where necessary, repair works and installation of selected software before being donated to the school.
Rentwise Malaysia’s ongoing CSR campaign since 2012 has been about identifying and helping needy schools without computer lab or having an existing computer lab in dire need of an upgrade. SK St. Mary has been without a computer lab for many years. This has been a huge challenge for both students and teachers alike who aspire for better learning infrastructure.
In 2016, the Parent Teacher’s Association (PTA) of the school began planning for the setup of the computer lab. Teachers and parents worked hard to make this dream a reality. Financial assistance for the installation of electrical wiring was also sponsored by the relevant parties to make this computer lab a reality.
“With this computer lab, we hope to enhance computer skills of our students. Teachers can now create blogs and prepare online assignments for students,” says Ngan Wai Fun, the headmistress of SK St. Mary, during the official launch of the computer lab on 16 January 2017. “Now, students can go to the computer lab during their free time or after school hours to do their homework. The Internet has been a great resource for them to do their research,” Ngan adds.
All the teachers are really happy to have a new channel of engagement with the students. As a resourceful tool to expand the minds of students, the computer lab is the first step towards realizing bigger changes in the learning process.
As of 2017, SK St. Mary has 957 pupils and about 60 teachers. “Everyone is excited over this new computer lab. Our teachers can now deliver their lessons through carefully designed software and e-activities pre-loaded in the computers,” Ngan says.
“Using remanufactured computers help reduce carbon footprint for a greener tomorrow while benefitting our future generation. Rentwise’s remanufactured computers are being used by over 200 mid to large size enterprises and business organisations in Malaysia,” says Lai Kien Wah, Rentwise’s representative, during his opening speech.
“While our effort in Green IT is making progress, it’s important for us to contribute back to the community, hence our CSR project together with our partner, Sunway Education Group,” Lai says. The Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah Foundation must be praised for sending their computers to Rentwise to be remanufactured before being donated to the school. “This CSR project is the brainchild of our CEO, Leanne Ooi, as we believe the essential purpose of Rentwise is to provide products and services that benefit environment, businesses and community,” Lai explains.
A plaque has been installed outside the computer lab to commemorate its official opening. This was made possible by Rentwise Malaysia and the Sunway Education Group. Lai; represented Rentwise whilst Dato’ Stanley Isaacs, on behalf of SK St. Mary school signed the plaque to mark the official hand over of computers by the joint CSR partnership team of Rentwise and Sunway Education Group.
Dato’ Stanley Isaacs, the Chairman of the Board of Governors for both St. Mary’s Primary and Secondary schools together with the Guest of Honour, Syamsul Rezal bin Abdul Rahman, the Unit Head of Academic Management from Education Office of Sentul Territory proceeded to inaugurate the computer lab in a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the presence of teachers and students.
“To all teachers of SK St. Mary, use these computers to your best advantage in educating the students, as you now have unlimited resources and power in your hands to enrich the learning experience of our future generation,” Syamsul says.
Ngan notes that the computer lab is necessary for the development of children’s learning. The launch of this computer lab is in line with the 13 years plan of PPPM (Pelan Pembangunan Pendidikan Malaysia) spanning 2013-2025 to use IT to increase quality of education in Malaysia. “Computers are likened to daily essential tools for learning and not considered a luxurious item anymore,” Ngan remarks.
With the donation of remanufactured computers to SK St. Mary, Rentwise hopes that this becomes the much needed catalyst to accelerate growth and learning for the future generation of Malaysians. As an advocate of Green IT, Rentwise firmly believes in driving sustainable business while preserving the environment.
Rentwise Malaysia looks forward to partnering with organisations that wish to dispose of their old IT equipment. Our technical expertise and DOE-compliant remanufacturing and IT disposal processes enable us to refresh and extend the life span of old IT equipment for a greener world. Corporate organisations who wish to contribute to this CSR initiative or schools who are interested to apply as our program participants can get in touch with us.
