The Laboratory of Computational Sciences and Informatics of Institut Penyelidikan Matematik (INPEM), in Universiti Putra Malaysia, was established on 01 April 02. It currently consists of six major research programs, which mission is to enhance the area of computational science and informatics research of multi disciplines such as engineering, economic, computing and etc.

The head of the laboratory, Assoc Prof Dr. Hishamuddin Zainuddin, has been an active user of Mathematica since the earlier versions. Though Dr. Hisham noticed that the user base of Mathematica was perhaps not as large as MatLab in Malaysia just yet, he found this mathematical software from Wolfram Research Inc was a very versatile computational package after all and indeed could be suitable for most general-purpose calculations.

Thanks to all the wonderful supports & kind arrangement of Dr. Hisham, together with his helpful staff like Ms Nurisya Mohd Shah, Ms Mazlina Zainy & others, OPTIMAL Expert was given the opportunity to help facilitating this 2^nd 1-day Mathematica Expository Workshop on 15 May 08 at UPM (Yes, there was another one organized in the Physics Department by Dr. Hisham & his team last year).

Nearly 25 participants, comprising of both post graduate students & lecturers from INSPEM & Physics filled up the entire class quickly. The class gave a fundamental overview of Mathematica & provided the participants with the valuable hand-on experience using Mathematica V6.0.2. Again the computation power, visualization ability, deployment flexibility, data integration, & many other advanced features of Mathematica V6, never failed to impress those look for a quality computational tool!