Eilham Awards: A New Inspiration

The idea of an awards site for Malaysians came about a few years back - I was really into multimedia since I fell in love with Macromedia Flash 5 (I think that was back in 2001), and I had landed myself a job in the e-learning industry as an instructional designer. My browsings on the World Wide Web brought me to sites like Cool Homepages, The World Wide Web Awards, Cool Web Designs, Designers' Depot, Design Firms, New Web Picks, i-Value Host, etc. , and I thought it was cool that all these sites were promoting professionals and new talents day in and day out.

Then I started to look for a Malaysian awards site. And I found none that was really accessible (Malaysian awards activities usually require documents which are really not any designer's cup of tea), and I was feeling a bit awkward - here I am, after 4 years designing websites, with 6 awards from international awards sites, but none from my own country.

I searched and looked from time to time, but no luck.

Until the day I met up with the Director of Yayasan Bina Insan Malaysia (formerly known as Yayasan Subang), who pitched me the idea to start Malaysia's very own design awards site. He also told me that Yayasan could help out in terms of funding and management, and also the networkings to publicize the site.

Immediate I had told him, "Hey, you're on!".

And so begins the journey, The Eilham Awards - The Malaysian Digital Media Awards Portal.