Digital Malaysia Progressing Ahead as Planned

Eight Digital Malaysia Projects in various stages of implementation


KUALA LUMPUR, September 27 2012 – The Digital Malaysia programme is on track with the gradual implementation of its first eight projects with a cumulative targeted GNI of RM270.75 Mil by the end of 2013.

The projects’ progress reported to the Digital Malaysia Steering Committee chaired by Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Datuk Seri Panglima Dr. Maximus Ongkili on Tuesday (Sept. 25), has also seen investment commitment of RM187.47 Mil from the private sector.

These eight projects which are the first wave of the Digital Malaysia programme are:  the Asian e-Fulfillment Hub, Enabling e-Payment Services for SMEs and Micro Enterprises, Shared Enterprise Services, Develop On-Demand Customised Online Education, Microsourcing to Generate Income for the B40, Facilitating Societal Upliftment, Establish a Trusted Mobile Digital Wallet Platform and Growing the Embedded Systems Industry.

The steering committee was also updated on key milestones achieved in the implementation of the ICT Satellite Account (ICTSA) by the Ministry of Finance in collaboration with Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), the Department of Statistics (DoS) and the Economic Planning Unit (EPU). The ICTSA will measure the impact of the ICT sector on the local economy.

Following in the steps of the successful Tourism Satellite Account, the ICTSA will provide a statistical framework for organising and presenting information about ICT and e-Commerce products and related activities. These would be based on six (6) primary indicators and nineteen (19) secondary supply and demand side indicators.

The first report targeted to be published by the year end will cover the period of 2005 to 2010. The set-up of the ICTSA is also timely as it will provide greater insight and data on ICT and e-Commerce, two fundamental components of Digital Malaysia, in light of the implementation of its eight projects this year.

Addressing the Steering Committee, Datuk Seri Panglima Dr. Maximus Ongkili said: “Last year, the Prime Minister announced the Digital Malaysia initiative and gave MDeC the task of spearheading this effort. Since then, MDeC and MOSTI have been hard at work in mapping out the development of Digital Malaysia. The projects are progressing as planned and we are pleased to note the commitment by the public and private sectors in rolling out these projects.”

Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, the Chief Executive Officer for MDeC added, “While these projects are ripe for development with the right infrastructure, systems and partners in place, it would not achieve its ultimate target of increasing the nation’s Gross National Income (GNI), enhancing productivity and improving standards of living without the participation of the right target audience.”

He also said, “The setting up of the e-Payment services enablement, for example, aims to get 40,000 merchants particularly SMEs, on board by the end of 2013. This will enable them to capitalise on the over 30 million debit card and credit card users in the country.”

“The customised online education project on the other hand, has attracted 502 users and 12 content providers in its initial BETA roll out. With the final version ready soon, we hope to see more content providers coming on board. Furthermore, we sincerely believe that more people should also be made aware of the availability of such online courses and programmes,” concluded Datuk Badlisham.

Digital Malaysia is the nation’s programme to advance the country towards a developed digital economy by 2020 by creating an ecosystem that promotes the pervasive use of ICT in all aspects of the society, government and economy.

Founded on three strategic thrusts of moving from Supply to Demand focused; from Consumption to Production Centric; and from Low Knowledge-Add to High Knowledge-Add; the move from the programme aims to:

• improve ICT contribution to the nation’s Gross National Income to RM294 billion or 17%, an increase from the current 9.8%;
• create 160,000 high value jobs and an additional RM7,000 digital income per annum for over 350,000 citizens by the year 2020.

To this effect, 25 Digital Malaysia projects will be implemented in stages. The first wave of eight projects was rolled out in July this year, with the remaining 17 projects to be announced in stages from next year.

Details of the eight projects are as follows:

EPP 1: E-COMMERCE

Project 1: Asian e-Fulfillment Hub

The project aims to make Malaysia the centre of e-Commerce related logistics services for Asia by leveraging on the power of the internet for the assembly, packaging, shipping and tracking of products across the region. MIDA is the public sector lead for this project. To date, logistics talent has been identified, trained and certified. In addition the operations of the logistics hub have also been established in Tampoi, Johor.

EPP 2 : ENTERPRISE ENABLEMENT

Project 1: Enabling e-Payment Services for SMEs and Micro Enterprises

The project with SME Corp as the public sector lead, aims to encourage more Malaysian businesses particularly SMEs and Micro enterprises to offer e-Payment services at their respective outlets. This will be done by creating more merchant outlet points enabled by electronic funds transfer at point of sale (EFTPOS) terminal, smartphone reader and online e-Payment. To facilitate this, a Third Party Acquirer (TPA) Selection Committee has been created to appoint qualified panel of TPAs who will serve as private sector champions of the project.

In addition, the project will also see the development of Regional Service Hubs by the approved TPAs by Dec 2012 to ensure that the roll-out of the terminals among the Micro enterprises and SMEs nationwide are supported.

Project 2:  Shared Cloud Enterprise Services

This project aims to garner more local companies to adopt Cloud-as-a-Service (CaaS) solutions as well as to get more independent software vendors (ISVs) to offer their services on the Cloud. To this effect, the adoption program commenced with five interested applicants that will be approved by October this year. In addition, a new Centre of Excellence has also been created for graduates. The recruitment of graduates for training programmes and the formalisation of more partners in the CoE are currently in development.



EPP 3: SPUR THE NETIZENS

Project 1: Develop On-Demand, Customised Online Education

This project aims to provide Malaysian internet users with customised education content with an entertainment edge (edutainment). A beta version of the programme has been introduced successfully to 502 users earlier this year and it is targeted to reach 1000 users by the end of 2012. The content will also be available through mobile applications on the iPhone iOS and Google Android platforms by the end of the year.


EPP 4:  UPLIFT THE B40

Project 1: Microsourcing to Generate Income for the B40

This project with the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development as public sector lead, aims to provide training for the Bottom 40 members of the community, to enable them to work remotely from their home in order to generate additional income for themselves and their family. These include basic computer literacy skills training that will enable them to perform simple tasks such as data collection and entry for corporations and organisations. To date, the training modules have been identified and MDeC has been working with key microsourcing partners and training providers to ensure that the microsourcing platform will be operational by the end of the year.

Project 2:  Facilitating Societal Upliftment

Also with the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development as public sector lead, this project provides the system and tools needed to match community development programmes and funding distributions to the right communities and areas. It will also ensure that there will be proper mechanisms in place to deploy and track these programmes, as well as obtain feedback from the target communities. The pilot project will be deployed in Pahang soon.


EPP 7: GROW THE TECHNOLOGY SECTOR

Project 1: Grow the Embedded Systems Industry

An embedded system is some combination of computer hardware and software, either fixed in capability or programmable, that is specifically designed for a particular function. Industrial machines, automobiles, medical equipment, cameras, household appliances, airplanes, vending machines as well as the more obvious mobile computing devices are among the myriad possible hosts of an embedded system.

The project entails the creation of an embedded systems pilot project and a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for the industry. The approval committee will select potential pilot projects by the end of October 2012. The Penang Skills Development Centre (PSDC) and MIMOS have also been identified as partners to the CoE ecosystem.


EPP 8: EMPOWER GREATER ECONOMY

Project 1: Develop a trusted Mobile Digital Wallet System

The project will create an ecosystem that will ensure a more pervasive adoption of Near Field Communications (NFC) by encouraging greater service provider participation and subsequently enabling more customers to enjoy the service in light of more manufacturers embedding the NFC capabilities in their latest mobile phones or devices. Currently, the project is in the trial stage with a local telecommunication partner. The service is to be ready for commercialisation by local telcos by end of 2012.