The ISB BGIC VIII coming soon. Just a few more days to go and the much anticipated ISB BGIC VIII will kick off this weekend. For those who are not aware, BGIC stands for Borneo Global Issues Conference. The conference will be held at the International Convention Centre as usual. This year, there will be 22 schools participating, six overseas and sixteen local schools, totaling to over 300 participants, the highest number so far for BGIC.

Lately International School of Brunei (ISB) has been hosting training session for the local schools to get grips with the do's and don'ts and the sessions also helped them to familiarise and polish up before the actual event. It is great to see our local schools participating in this event and the number of schools involved have increased over the years. I've even seen some comments on Twitter where former delegates were praising about the idea of being in BGIC and how they missed being a part of it.

The Keynote speaker for this year's ISB BGIC VIII is Kate McAlpine, a children's rights activist and researcher, which is tuned with this year's theme, "The Rights of Children" in conjunction with the United Nation's 20th anniversary of The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

In 1997 Kate founded Mkombozi, an NGO which works with over 1,000 street children and youth. It is now one of the most renowned child rights organisations in Tanzania, winning the STARS Award in 2008 for the most effective child protection agency in Africa. She is currently coordinating a new initiative, the Caucus for Children’s Rights, which is a network of organisations and individuals who are committed to advancing rights, welfare, protection, and empowerment of children and youth in Tanzania.

HSBC is the main sponsor of this student-managed conference this year, which is also generously supported by MIPR and BLNG. The Conference will be held at the ICC from 12 - 15 March 2010.

Some of the general topics that will be discussed during this year's BGIC are such as tourism in Borneo, the growing problem of orphans and abandoned children, improving the lives of children who are slum dwellers, human trafficking and protecting children from exploitation.

I will be covering the opening ceremony of the ISB BGIC VIII this Saturday and I would like to wish all the participants and the organisers the best of luck. I believe this year's BGIC will be awesome ;) Keep the great work, lads..