MALAYSIA NEEDS TO FAST TRACK INNOVATION AGENDA

Tengku Farith Rithauddeen, Group Chief Executive Officer and Co- founder of the SKALI Group of Companies

Kuala Lumpur, May 22, 2008 ~ The success of WCIT 2008 has earmarked Malaysia as an important mover in the region’s innovation agenda but the nation will still lag behind countries like Singapore and even Vietnam if nothing is being done to address the issues of dearth of local skilled workers and also the lack of basic ICT infrastructure such as a nationwide broadband connection.

Tengku Farith Rithauddeen, Group Chief Executive Officer and Co- founder of the SKALI Group of Companies said that the arrival of WCIT in Malaysia is a clear endorsement that Malaysia is a world player in the global ICT industry. “However, we must never rest on our laurels and must persist to advance and continue to be the preferred innovation hub as other countries are catching up fast on us,” he added.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had recently said that MSC Malaysia is now home to more than 2,000 companies including home-grown and multinationals, of which about 100 are leading global companies. In 2007, MSC status companies’ turnover was approximately 13.6 billion ringgit — an increase of more than 25 per cent compared to 2002.

“Even though the statistics are quite impressive, SKALI is still concerned as we are lacking behind other countries in terms of innovation agenda. We have noted down few key requirements for Malaysia to address before we are able to quantum leap into the next era for the ICT industry. We must remember where we are now but how fast and how far we can go in the future.

“One of the biggest issues has been the lack of human development programmes for the industry as the nation is currently facing shortage of skilled graduates who conform to the industry standards. As a result, although we currently have approximately 10,000 unemployed IT graduates, we still need to employ skilled foreign workers.

“SKALI has taken this challenge to re-skill our graduates to make them better prepared with the required skill through our ‘SKALI Pioneers and Innovators in the Knowledge Economy (SPIKE) programme, and we sincerely hope that other players could do the same to help the industry.

“Through the SPIKE programme, SKALI had already re-skilled 253 graduates who are currently working for the Managed Portal Services, a project by SKALI to build and upgrade government websites and portals. “We don’t just train them. We also ‘hold their hands’ so that they are able to survive in the industry and also alter on become technopreneurs themselves,” said Tengku Farith.

Tengku Farith also added that Malaysia’s snail paced move to implement a nationwide broadband access would also lead to a slowdown in the ICT industry. Although Malaysia’s broadband penetration rate stands at 0.08 percent, Singapore stands at 6.13 per cent and South Korea at 19.29 per cent. This is very low as compared to other Southeast Asian countries. The Malaysian Broadband Masterplan, recently introduced by the government, is expected to accelerate the development of broadband access in the country.

“The implementation of nationwide broadband access will not only accelerate the transformation of Malaysia into a K-based society and economy, but will also attract more FDI’s into the country thus will lead to the development of SMEs in the ICT sector. This snowballing effect will see the true notion of wealth creation.

“SMEs will then be able to capitalise on their knowledge and promote better services and be competitive throughout the nation. Malaysia would also be able to narrow down its digital divide as more ICT-based companies would invest in other towns if the ICT infrastructure and human capital are available,” Tengku Farith concluded.