IAP recommendations in a nutshell

PUTRAJAYA, 10 November, 2009: The ten members and representatives of the 12th MSC Malaysia International Advisory Panel (IAP) meeting at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC) noted MSC Malaysia's growth, according to Malaysian Prime minister, Dato' Sri Najib bi Tun Abdul Razak.

In 2008, companies with MSC Malaysia – status had generated RM21.7 billion in revenue and 7.09 billion in exports of their information and communication technology (ICT)-related products and services.

Malaysia's goal is to achieve developed nation status by the year 2020, with a per-capital gross national income (GNI) equivalent to US$17,000 with the help of ICT and a knowledge-based economy, compared to a GNI of US$7,000 today.

IAP members, all of whom are corporate heads, heads of non-profit organisations, academics, visionaries and others from overseas had advised the prime minister on what Malaysia should do in the area of ICT to achieve its objectives.

Among their recommendations was that Malaysia must increase its broadband penetration on a massive scale.

Through the High Speed Broadband (HSBB) project, a public/private partnership between the government and telephone network operator Telekom Malaysia, the government has contributed RM2.9 billion, while Telekom contributed over RM9 billion to help achieve the government's target of 50% broadband penetration by household by the end of 2010.

However, broadband penetration stands at around 25% and mostly n urban areas, though Najib is confident that with a hard push, with the HSBB project and its sister Broadband for the General Population (BBGP) initiative involving DSL fixed broadband, cellular and WiMAX wireless broadband by smaller players, Malaysia can achieve its target by then.

“According to the the World Bank, every 10% increase in broadband penetration results in a 1.3% increase in a country's gross domestic product (GDP),” said Najib.

However, he did not say whether that 1.3% included contributions to the GDP by industries such as multimedia, content and services which were enabled by the availability of broadband or whether their contributions added to this figure, since by extrapolation, 100% broadband penetration would result in a 13% increase in GDP, which while significant isn't all that much either.

However, Najib pointed out that an industrially and technology advanced country such as South Korea had fared better than Japan due to its extensive, high-capacity broadband infrastructure which had enabled the development of a lucrative content industry and thus this oft-cited 1.3% increase in many conference and seminar presenters' speeches wasn't just an empty cliche but a proven fact.

Still, recent economic reports about South Korea indentify IT equiment as the biggest revenue contributor from its IT sector, while they don't mention creative multimedia.

The some  200 creative companies under MSC Malaysia  generated RM677 million in annual revenue in areas of post-production, animation, game development, electronic-learning, mobile and interactive content, while the global market for creative content was worth the equivalent of RM2.2 trillion in 2009.

Other recommendations were that Malaysia needs to continue to develop its content industry, that it focus on the  supply-side to show what ICT can do to transform the nation, increase research and development (R&D) efforts and create more world-class R&D labs, use ICT to develop simulation in R&D, use ICT to combat traffic jams, crime and other problems, develop leadership, technology entrepreneurs, drive and facilitate adoption of ICT, increase creative  capacities among the young, fully use new media to communicate with the people

“To help ICT companies increase their market share, my government will provide some procurement possibilities,” said Najib. “Our government will also prioritise ICT in our New Economic Model to be unveiled by the end of the year.”

Microsoft corporate vice-president Dr. Ya-Qin Zhang proposed the establishment of an R&D facility in Malaysia which is the best in the world. while Annie Cheung, IBM ASEAN vice-president for its Smarter Planet Initiative said that a country moves forward because of its people and that Malaysian universities should align themselves with major universities in the United States to attract talented Malaysians researchers living and working abroad to return home.

Cheung's  mention of US universities was only because she is Chinese-American, though her advice could apply to major universities elsewhere.

As for government funding of R&D efforts, which normally demand large sums, the prime minister said, “We will have to look at what we can afford and explore possibilities of public-private partnerships.”

Najib announces MSC Malaysia updates

PUTRAJAYA, 9 November, 2009: Malaysia's Prime Minister, Dato' Sri Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak declared that MSC Malaysia, the country's national information and communications technology (ICT) initiative was progressing as expected.

He had just finished chairing MSC Malaysia's 21st Implementation Council Meeting, held at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre in conjunction with the 12th annual MSC Malaysia International Advisory Panel (IAP) meeting which would present its findings later today (10 November).

IAP members comprise prominent persons, all from overseas, including heads of multinational companies, non-profit organisations, academics, entrepreneurs, visionaries and specialists in ICT.

On the other hand, ICM members and all domestic, including cabinet ministers, policy makers and heads of agencies were led in brainstorming, question and answer sessions by the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) - the agency charged with implementing MSC Malaysia on its progress and way forward.

Presenting its updates, Najib said,” There are now over 2,000 MSC Malaysia status companies and amongst them, they have registered over 4,000 patents on their intellectual property rights. In 2008 they generated RM21.8 billion in revenue, up 27%  on 2007 and of these, 69% was contributed by Malaysian companies.

He cited Malaysian companies such as Pulse, Jobstreet.com and Synamatics for having successfully penetrated the global market and urged others to do so too. MSC Malaysia companies had contributed RM7.09 billion in exports in 2008, which despite the current world economic crisis is up from RM 5.57 billion in 2007.

However, this is still very small, compared to Malaysia's merchandise exports which was worth the equivalent of US$200 billion (about RM674 billion) in 2008, though the growth in ICT exports is encouraging.

Employment opportunities

“There are now 92,000 high skilled jobs in MSC Malaysia and I expect we are on track to meet our goal of 100,000 jobs by the end of 2010,” said Najib.

However Malaysia has to move fast to create an abundant supply of well-trained, multi-skilled ICT workers who are on par with the best in the world and to that end Najib urged MDeC to continue to work closely with the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation, Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Human Resources to ensure growth of available talent in this area.

A common complaint amongst MSC Malaysia companies is that their products and services have found more acceptance abroad, while Malaysian companies and organisations prefer imported options, so Najib urged Malaysian government ministries and agencies to adopt home-grown ICT products and services, provided they are cost competitive and of a high quality.

He also urged greater us of MyKAD – Malaysia's smartcard-based national identification card – so that people can benefit from ICT.

An example is the non-profit MyKasih (Love My Neighbourhood) foundation supported by the Dialog Group, which  uses technology to enable corporate, welfare agencies or non-profit organisations to donate RM1.00 to the less privileged, identified by their MyKAD, which they can then use to make purchases, currently at petrol stations and hypermarkets, and have the have them charged to their registered bank account. MyKasih exhibited at the event.

“I am also pleased with the progress made by the Agriculture Flagship, which is crucial to ensure national food security and improved farmers' income by using ICT,” said Najib.

Soft launch of MaC3

That same day, Najib soft-launched the MSC Malaysia Animation and Creative Content Centre (MaC3) to provide technology and resources, develop talent, and offer funding to budding and passionate content developers, launch Malaysia as a leading provider of creative digital content. It's housed in the SME Technopreneur Centre in neighbouring Cyberjaya.

Animation, games and creative content is a high-growth area, estimated to be worth RM2.2 trillion worldwide this year.

Under its current phase, it has a MaC3 Business Zone, while a Learning Zone will be added in the third quarter of 2010.

“The Business Zone is to incubate content creation companies, provide them with mentorship and the use of top-end hardware and 3D animation software,” said Hasnul Hadi, head of MaC3. “We've also closed a tender for a rendering farm comprising 120 nodes of quad-core PCs and 180 terabytes of storage to use to render animations for TV .”

To date, nine start-up companies, Maple Signature. Wok! Talk, Studio Caterpillar, Framemotion Animation, Big Beak Pictures, Animosia Studios, red Turtle Animation, Big Bag Robot and Fulkrum Interactive Media are housed within the MaC3 Studio within the Business Zone. Each of them will spend about a year there.

To enable multimedia graduates gain some experience, MaC3 will pay MSC Malaysia content creation companies to provide them with six-months of on-the-job experience and it also has arranged industry/academia cooperation in initiatives such as train-the-trainer programmes.

“We're also looking into establishing a finishing school to provide short courses, such as three-week programmes with companies such as Rhythm & Hues or Codemasters, where they can for example use to design games and to understand where they can fit,” said Hasnul.

Some of these programmes will involve attachment with a creative company, while others will involve an expert trainer, even from overseas, who will conduct a week of training in specific skills.

“Creative talent is built on portfolios and it helps creators to have a good trainer to show them what to expect and to to think for themselves ,” said Hasnul. “One of the problems we've found with creators in incubators is that they do not know when to stop development of their project when it is good enough for the world market, so they need an outsider to provide a benchmark for them.”

The MaC3 ecosystem also includes partners such as KRU Studios.

MaC3 began operation in June and has been allocated RM80 million to disburse up to RM5 million to each content co-creation project between an MSC Malaysia company and a foreign content creator partner. It's aim is to fund up to 15 projects.

To qualify, the MSC company must firstly be a Malaysian company, it must already have the means – ie. a full production studio and skilled staff and a valid foreign partner.

When set up, the Learning Zone will have a screening auditorium, a showcase area and a Kids Exploration Centre where children can use the software to create simple animations.

“We also go out, even to rural areas to teach students create stories using a digital camcorder and post them on You Tube,” said Hasnul. Some of them can be found by searching You Tube on “MSC MaC3.” MaC3 also recently began working with Nokia OVI.

Lack of recognition

To date, Singapore is Malaysia's biggest competitor in animation, though many of the talents working there are Malaysian.

A major problem animators still face is a lack due credit for their creations and art, and a lack of respect for their vocation.

“Malaysian parents are still rather obsessed with wanting their children to be in the science stream in school but they don't realise that animation, such as those by major animators such as Pixar also includes a lot of science,” said Hasnul.

The IAP

While at time of writing, the IAP has not yet held its meeting and presented its conclusions, its theme this is Innovation Economy: Paving the Path to Prosperity, in response to the prime minister's call for ICT to be used to benefit society, enable its smoother operation, greater efficiency and convenience to the public.

This theme also reflects the objectives of MSC Malaysia during its third phase which begins in 2011 and runs till 2020, when Malaysia aims to be a fully developed nation.

MSC Malaysia's first phase focused on building up its physical infrastructure, whilst it's second phase – the current one – focused on building up the supply side, including skills, competency, human resources and others.

Of the 16 panellists who were expected to attend, only six confirmed their attendance and two sent representatives.

Those who attended in person are Dr. Robert Bishop, vice-chairman BBWorld; Dr. Ya-Qin Zhang, corporate vice-president, Microsoft; Mahmoud Bouneb, executive general manager, Al-Jazeera Children Channel; Prof. Dennis A Roberson, vice-provost of New Initiatives, Illinois Institute of Technology, Brian Mefford, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Connected Nation; and Dr. John Gage, partner, Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers.

Steve Forbes, chairman and CEO of Forbes Publishing sent vice-chairman Christopher Forbes as his representative, while Ms Annie Cheung, vice-president, Smarter Planet Initiative, IBM ASEAN stood in for Sam Palmisano, her chairman and CEO.

The eight would meet with the prime minister to present their recommendations on the future of MSC Malaysia to him.

We go to interview four of them to find out what they had to say.

Smarter cities for a smarter planet

IBM's Smarter Cities concept views government services, transportation, energy & utilities, healthcare, telecommunications, education and public safety as cities' core systems since as the majority of planet Earth's people have been living in cities since 2007, and 70% of Earth's population in 2050 will be city dwellers; cities will be a microcosm of greatly intensified challenges and opportunities than today, and will become crucibles where the success or failure of the planet are determines.

However, thanks to advances in miniaturisation in microelectronics, its consequent low cost hence availability in huge numbers, coupled with advances in telecommunications; intelligence can be infused into the way the world works and to help to make cities more liveable and reduce its impact on the environment.

“For example, IBM worked with the New York Police Department to use technology to reduce crime there by 27%,” said Annie Cheung.

“IBM provided the police with a crime information warehouse which allowed them to analyse five million criminal records to predict the occurrence of crime and by that, the city was able to take appropriate action, such as to install more lights in dark alleys which helped reduce crime. As a consequence of that, fewer people left the city, real estates went up, more tourists came and economic life of the city revived,” said Annie Cheung.

The issue in 2006 of shrimp from Vietnam containing antibiotics resulted in the authorities in the importing countries wanting to track which farm the produce came from and Thai food exporter CP put bar codes on its food which when scanned would call up a picture of the farmer, scenes of its clean room and so on from a system IBM provided the company.

Stockholm implemented an intelligent toll system in the city centre, which resulted in 20% less traffic, 40% lower emissions and 40,000 more users of its public transportation system.

When all a city's core systems have such intelligent control systems which are linked up and interact with each other, the city will become a smarter city, in IBM's terms.

“I believe the new prime minister is committed to such changes,” Cheung added.

Green the future?

Former chief researcher and vice-president at Sun Microsystems' Science Office, Dr John Gage left Sun last year to join venture capital company Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers which focuses on funding green technology, especially to help reduce carbon emissions and global warming.

“Kleiner Perkins is the company had invested in Sun when it was a start-up and also Yahoo! Google, Amazon.com and Genentech, and Sun co-founder Bill Joy who left to join Kleiner Perkins four years ago believes that green technology is the future, while the heyday of ICT is over,” said Dr Gage.

“When venture capital providers invest in start-ups they hope to make say 1,000 dollars for every dollar they invest when they cash out and Kleiner Perkins would find it hard to invest in an energy efficient company but OK to invest in one which say produces a new type of battery which may make billions.

“Now we can use Malaysian biomass as a fuel if we burn it in the correct way,” Dr. Gage added.

Another area for Malaysia is to be able to make its electrical system more efficient. Right now, Malaysia burns much coal from Indonesia to generate electricity where only one third of the energy is converted into electricity, while the rest is lost as heat and another 10% is lost during transmission over transmission lines.

Also, when the alternating current electricity is used to power devices such as motors which have coils in them it causes a shift in the phase of the current versus the voltage resulting in inefficient electrical power transfer and higher power demand at the power station, hence more energy.

The solution is to balance out the phase shift by adding a capacitor in the circuit but with Kuala Lumpur's rapid expansion, there are not enough engineers to correct the problem factories, buildings and other such locations,

“Forty per cent of all greenhouse gases are due tu buildings,” said Gage.

Other issues are the use of incandescent lamps which are very inefficient and while fluorescent bulbs may be more efficient, the contain a little mercury which is poisonous but the future is lamps made from bright light-emitting diodes which are very much more efficient.

So companies which can develop technology-based solutions to these problems stand to make a lot of money.

Top barriers to broadband adoption

The top barriers to broadband adoption are relevance, computer ownership and affordability in descending order, according to Brian Mefford of Connected Nation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to help people gain access to technology in how they work. It works with governments and communities, in private/public partnerships to provide broadband.

For example, a company such as a bank, a PC manufacturer and others would be interested if that broadband would help speed up adoption of its products and services.

“In the state of Kentucky, where we began, broadband availability was low, broadband uptake was low and the level of IT skills was low and in 2002, ICT jobs in Kentucky declined by 6.4%,” said Mefford.

“Connected Nation began work in 2004 to increase broadband availability, uptake and skills development and by 2006 IT jobs had grown by 3.1% and as a result, Amazon.com found it attractive to set up an operation there and provided jobs,” he added.

To interest a community to use broadband, Connected Nation brought together representatives of different stakeholders and the community to get them to use technology and move forward and base on feedback, it worked out a programme where it established a community portal and got the children to key in the experiences of the elders into the portal and that provided content which made it attractive for members of the community to use computers.

It also worked with the community to get the farmers to diversify their crops and so on.

Unique in in the Muslim World

“Malaysia's experience in driving the development of content based on its own culture and values is unique in the Muslim world,” said Mahmoud Bouneb of Al Jazeera Children Channel. “For the past 50 years, Arab children watched violent content from overseas.”

The Qatar-based TV company broadcasts two channels, Baraem (buds in Arabic) for children aged three to six and Al Jazeera Children Channel for those aged seven to 15, with coverage of the Arab countries and Europe.

Over the past three years, its been in the process of collaborating with MDeC in the co-producing 26 episodes of Saladin as a TV series and expects to launch the first set of 13 episodes in May or June next year.

It also plans to make Saladin into a into a feature length movie aimed at all ages from six to 99.

While there is violence in Saladin, it's in the historical context of his time, rather than senseless violence for its sake.

However, while Mahmoud sees no problem with technical and artistic capabilities in Malaysia, a serious problem in Qatar, Malaysia and the rest of Asia is poor storyboarding skills. Storyboarding is an editorial skill which adapts the story to for the production.

“The next 10 to 20 years will be years of content creation worldwide,” said Mahmoud.

12th MSC Malaysia IAP meeting to be about innovation and creativity

Kuala Lumpur, 2 November, 2009: The 12th MSC Malaysia International Advisory Panel (IAP) will be held at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre in Putrajaya on 9 and 10 November.

With this year's meeting themed Innovation Economy: Paving the Path to Prosperity, the 15 panellists representing multinational information and communications technology corporations, media, academia and non-governmental bodies will discuss several key issues, including ways for MSC Malaysia – the nation's ICT initiative – to accelerate Malaysia's transformation into a knowledge-based economy through innovation and creativity.

The 15 are:-

• Steve Forbes, Chairman and CEO of FORBES
• Brian Mefford, Chairman and CEO of Connected Nation
• Sam Palmisano, Chairman and CEO of IBM
• Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Founder of Grameen Bank
• Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chang
• Stephen McGuckin – Managing Director of DHL
• Dr Robert Bishop – Vice Chairman of BBWorld
• Dr Ya-Qin Zhang – Corporate Vice President of Microsoft
• Mahmoud Bouneb – Executive General Manager of Al Jazeera Children Channel
• Prof. William F. Miller - Herbett Hoover Professor of Public and Private, Stanford University
• Prof. Dennis A. Roberson – Vice Provost of New Initiatives, Illinois Institute of Technology
• Narayana Murthy -  Founder of INFOSYS
• Dr. John Gage - Partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
• Wim Elfrink - Exec. Vice President, Services & Chief Globalisation Officer (CISCO)
• Madam Sun Yafang – Chairwoman, Huawei Technologies

At the meeting, they are expected to speak on a range of topics, including: developments and initiatives in science education, technology entrepreneurship, robotics, content development, and broadband utilisation – these areas of concern will provide a structural blueprint for accelerating the transformation of Malaysia into a knowledge-based economy through innovation and creativity.

The IAP members will also be involved in the Learning Symposium held in conjunction of the meeting.  To be held at the same venue, the Learning Symposium will leverage on the IAP members’ knowledge, wisdom and experience for the benefit of MSC Malaysia community, in particular.

There will be two parallel track sessions; Education and Business, of which the panellists will consist of the panel members.

The views of the 15 appropriately invited IAP members will go towards Phase 3 of MSC Malaysia which begins in 2011 and runs till the year 2020.

MSC Malaysia's first phase focused on building up its physical infrastructure, whilst it's second phase – the current one – focused on building up the supply side, including skills, competency, human resources and others.

This year’s IAP meeting will also observe a new format that is intended to bring more structure to the meeting by allowing each representative sufficient time to communicate their counsel. Previous meetings were very discussion-oriented in nature which was good but IAP members themselves requested this new format.

This will also be the first time, Malaysia's new Prime Minister, Dato' Sri Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak will chair the IAP meeting.

On the first day, he will also for the first time chair the 21st MSC Malaysia Implementation Council Meeting (MSC Malaysia ICM), in which members of the ICM will participate in brainstorming and question and answer sessions led by the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC).

The ICM is the domestic counterpart to the IAP and its members include cabinet Ministers, policy makers and heads of agencies.

Further information on the IAP is available at www.mscmalaysia.my/IAP.