Pre-learning Research

In the words of Louis Pasteur, "Chance favours only the prepared mind." While the visits during the course of Engineering Week has no relation to chance, it does demonstrate the momentousness of background research. Prior to our visits to the esteemed companies, it seemed prudent to gather at least a modicum of knowledge with regards to the places we were about to visit.
The following (in order of day of visit) will outline the research that was done before the visit:

1. Qioptiq
As from their website, "Qioptiq designs and manufactures photonic products and solutions", which will benefit many areas from medicine to defense. It is a well-known company that produces high-quality standard components, products and instruments and many more products which are manifestations of the cutting-edge technology that the company has. The wide range of sectors it caters to augments the impressiveness of Qioptiq. For example, for industrial applications, it has developed diode lasers and fiber optics. For medicine, it produces endoscopes, X-ray imaging technology and DNA analysis, among many others. It also provides a comprehensive range of  products for the defense sector, such as surveillance technology and infrared detection equipment.

2. 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company)
Post-It notes have become a common commodity, yet few know about the other 55,000 products they have, and perhaps only a minuscule amount know of their rich history. Founded in 1902, 3M manufactured sandpaper and the "Scotch Tape", along with other innovative products, paving the way for their eventual business operations in other countries worldwide. As a company with a strong culture of innovation, it exhibits tenacity in introducing neoteric products that improves our quality of life. Some of its current innovations includes flexi-circuits and privacy filters.

3. Life Technologies
Established by the merger between Invitrogen Corporation and Applied Biosystems Inc, Life Technologies is a gobal biotechnology tools company dedicated to improving the human condition. Life Technologies have an incredible array of fields that they specialise in, and can be broadly classified into Research Sciences, Applied Sciences and Medical Sciences. For a company that has merged recently in 2008, it has several products worth noting, such as the Dynabeads and FLoid, which had positive impacts on both the scientific community and the public. In addition, Life Technologies had sales of $37 billion (as of 2011), with more than 4000 patented products.

4. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
"Do more, feel better, live longer," is an eye-catching phrase adopted by GSK as their philosophy. As a thriving pharmaceutical giant, it has noble goals to enhance the standard of living of everyone through the use of medicine. One of the most common example is the household brand, "Panadol", manufactured by GSK. Yes, it indeed came as a shocking realisation to me that GSK, a name I've previously unheard of, have been churning out drugs I have taken since young, among many others. The operations of this company piques my interest owing to my ardour in Chemistry, since it represents the unique blend of both pure and applied Chemistry, by using chemical theories via their Research and Development (R&D) programs to save the lives of many, and at the same time profit (revenue of 27.387 billion pounds as of 2011), establishing itself as one of the world's largest pharmaceutical company.