MALAYSIA: ICT EDUCATION FOR A “CREATIVE SOCIETY”

By Alice Kok

Malaysia Higher Education Ministry is studying how to develop a creative and innovative Malaysian society through human capital development

The ministry is planning to work with Microsoft in unearthing creative and innovative students of tertiary institutions in the area of ICT and with Shell Malaysia in energy saving.

Its minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the study to produce creative, innovative human capital was started last year by the Malaysian Invention and Design Society (MINDS), Universiti Teknologi Mara and Malaysian Design Council. This study will be looking at programmes by government agencies that could contribute to the creation of “innovative human capital”.

“We hope when the study is completed, expected this year, we will be able to draw up a national blueprint in this context,” he said. “Malaysia wants to move away from a resource-based economy to one generated by innovations with the existence of an innovative society, which will indicate that the country has reached developed-nation status,” he said.

Nordin said creativity and innovations were vital for a country and studies had shown that technological innovations contributed to higher productivity, Gross Domestic Product, economic growth and improved standard of living

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Huawei set to help enhance Malaysia’s ICT training

By ZUHRIN AZAM AHMAD

CYBERJAYA: Huawei, a global leading ICT solution provider, expects to invest another RM90mil in the next few years to consolidate Malaysia's position as a world-class ICT training hub.

The investment would be mainly for equipment and facilities of new technologies at its Malaysia Global Training Centre (MGTC) located here.

Huawei Technologies (M) Sdn Bhd deputy managing director Foo Fang Yong said ICT sector needed a continuous investment as the sector developed rapidly.

“It is a non-stop developing sector where we see new inventions or improved-version technologies almost on a daily basis.

“We invested RM90mil in 2010 when we started the MGTC and we could expect a similar amount to be invested as we must keep abreast with current technologies,” he said after the launching of the centre by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak yesterday.

The MGTC is Huawei's third in the world and first outside its homebased China.

In conjunction with the launch, Huawei also signed an agreement with 10 local universities that would initiate the setting up of 10 Huawei University Training Labs under MSC Malaysia MyUniAlliance (Huawei) programme in each of the universities.

The initiative is to further cultivate the interest of students in the field of next generation ICT technologies such as cloud Computing and Fixed Broadband.

Huawei senior vice-president Victor Wang said the key objective of the initiatives was to train and develop 10,000 ICT local professionals by 2016.

He sai d the initiatives would be further supported by the introduction of MSC Malaysia-Huawei Scholastic Awards, aimed to help cultivate interest among graduates to acquire the necessary skills to enter the ICT sector.

Last year, Huawei which has a work force of 150,000 people worldwide earned US$35bil. Its clientele includes 45 of the world's top 50 telecommunication operators.

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Malaysian ICT to grow as economy recovers, says minister

Malaysia’s information and communications technology (ICT) sector could grow by 7% if economic recovery and business confidence continues, says Malaysia’s Science, Technology and Information Minister Dr Maximus Johnity Ongkili. ICT contributed as much as RM48 billion (US$15.8 billion) or 10% of Malaysia’s GDP in 2007, but only RM40 billion ($13.2 billion) last year.

Before the financial crisis ICT in Malaysia had been projected to grow 10% per year, one of Asia’s fastest, he said.

Ongkili made his comments at Mimos, a major R&D center for ‘frontier technologies’ and advisor to the Malaysian government, which focuses on technology that can be commercialized for growth. Mimos yesterday held a ceremony to transfer technology platforms to three local companies to be developed for market by the private sector: Jaring Communications Sdn Bhd, Mutiara.com and Smart Computing Sdn Bhd.

Six other Malaysian companies also signed deals to licence and develop Mimos’ technology: Disability Solutions Sdn Bhd, Alam Teknokrat Sdn Bhd, Innovision Business Solutions Sdn Bhd, Phytofolia Sdn Bhd, Quantum Beez Sdn Bhd and Fabtronic Sdn Bhd.

131 ‘WiFi Villages’ for Sandakan

Meanwhile, in Malaysia’s far eastern city of Sandakan, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said it was halfway through a project to provide minimal-charge wireless internet access to 131 area villages, enabling urban and rural populations equal access to online services. MCMC has also distributed 49,800 netbooks to students in Sabah province on Borneo under the 1Malaysia project.

source & articles: The Star online, Mimos

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How global downturn affects local ICT industry

The economic downturn has affected many major sectors of the economy. Tech&U talks to IDC Asean research manager Jubert Daniel Alberto on its impact on the ICT industry.

Alberto feels there will be cautious spending as uncertainty continues.

Q: How do you see the impact of the economic slowdown on the local tech industry? What influences the performance?

A: While the manufacturing sector continued to drop because of the slowdown in export, and retrenchment continue to rise, the market is putting hopes on the RM60 billion stimulus package to “kick in” by second quarter of the year. For instance, the PC market is coming off a 20 per cent sequential drop in the fourth quarter of 2008, while the hardcopy peripherals market also saw 44 per cent drop.

Decline in performance was a direct offshoot of the global economic slowdown, which pulled down market sentiment especially for corporate end-users. Enterprises are cutting down on spending to stay afloat while consumers hold back unwarranted spending as issues of retrenchment and pay cuts became apparent at the start of this year.

Q: Which segments contributed significantly to the industry growth?

A: As the commercial market is cautious of spending, IDC expects consumer spending to cushion the overall drop in the market. Most companies, particularly banking and manufacturing, are spending wisely based on long-term strategies.

Q: Based on the result, what can you comment on consumer tech spending?

A: Given the right price and product specifications, consumers will buy. Vendors need to focus on striking a good balance between pricing and product positioning. Although consumers are likely to reduce spending on “luxury” products first, (as IT products such as PCs or printers have become a necessity), the full impact will only be felt if unemployment rate continues to rise and household savings fall below a comfortable level.

Q: How did Malaysia fare, compared to Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines?

A: Bleak market performance is hovering in these countries. Based on IDC’s Worldwide IT Spending Black Book, Feb 2009, hardware spending is set to decline in 2009 in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, driven by cautious spending. Thailand, for instance, is seen to achieve flat growth in 2009, with PC shipments expected to drop by less than five per cent the first quarter of this year compared to the same period of last year.

Q: Based on the first quarter performance, what is in store for the local ICT industry this year?

A: There will be cautious spending as further uncertainty continues. Prolonged usage of existing IT infrastructure will be another effect of the low market sentiment, while spending from public sector will remain weak, as the budget has shifted to economic stimuli rather than direct spending on IT infrastructure.

But lower spending on hardware also opens up opportunities for IT services, as companies try to mitigate absence of large projects through alternative solutions. Overall, prudent investments will be evident, but ICT players should still seek to maintain an aggressive stance through targeted focus and effective channel management. The government needs to come up with a stimulus package that would directly impact the local IT investment.

During this downturn, investment on IT infrastructure, such as broadband, are likely to stimulate employment and job opportunities while building up the country’s infrastructure in the next five years, which is a key factor in luring foreign direct investments.

Most governments in this region such as Thailand and the Philippines have continued to invest in ICT-related areas such as business process outsourcing, broadband and software development despite anticipating a slowdown in their economies.

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ICT uptake still not enough

THE local small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) industry has about 100,000 players, and growing.

Their combined business contributes about 32 per cent to the gross domestic product, and the industry itself employs some 56 per cent of the total workforce in the country.

So, it is important that SMEs continue to maintain a high productivity level to ensure that their contributions continue, lest it will impact the country’s economic growth.

In this regard, it is encouraging to know that members in the local SME community have been increasingly looking at ICT to beef up their operational efficiency and explore new forms of channels to market their products. This certainly augurs well as ICT can play an important role to help SMEs create business opportunities and combat pressures from competition.

Appropriate ICT use can help cut costs by improving internal processes, developing better products through faster communication with their customers, and better promotion and distribution of products through an online presence.

Nevertheless, observers reckon that while most SMEs are aware of the potential benefits of ICT, they are unsure of how to select the right solution. This, in a way, has slowed down ICT uptake within a larger section of the SME community.

Based on a recent study of SMEs in manufacturing, only about 10 per cent have used enterprise resource planning software, 10 per cent have used customer relationship management software, 13 per cent have used computeraided manufacturing, and about 25 per cent have used computer-aided design.

And only 30 per cent have a Web presence and use ICT extensively in their daily operations.

The challenge now is to ensure that ICT usage is widespread, not only within a small group but also throughout the SME community. This is important as SMEs not only face competition from peers, but also international outfits seeking to expand their presence here.

So, local SMEs have to be well-prepared, and this includes leveraging on technology to remain competitive.

While the Government can play a part by providing financial aid in the form of grants and other incentives, SMEs themselves need to be a believer of ICT as an enabler towards a better business future.

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Integration or Transformation?

 A cross-national study of Information and Communication Technology in School Education

by Andrew E. Fluck

The advent of relatively cheap micro-computers in the 1980s has led to major investment in information and communication technology (ICT) for schools. The technology has been developed continually, creating a situation where practice and policy can have significant differences. The literature relating to innovation diffusion and the rationale for ICT in school education has concentrated upon effectiveness and teacher professional development. Existing models of development in the area are limited in scope or make ill-founded assumptions. Little work has been done on the question of alignment between policy and practice.

This study used a grounded theory approach to examine the relationship between policy, implementation and underlying models of development. This was done through a process of policy comparison, consultation with experts in the field and case study observations. The methodology used a comparative case study approach at national, school and classroom levels and examined issues such as the nature and development processes for policy in the area, implementation and practice in the use of computers in classrooms, teacher professional development and stages of development as perceived by practitioners. Data were gathered from the United States of America, England, Estonia and Australia in November 1999 to September 2002.

The study found ICT curriculum approaches for students were strongly aligned with a stage of development which emphasised the integration of ICT into existing curricula and current classroom practice. There was poor alignment between overlapping policies for teacher training and student learning outcomes and also between policy and classroom practice. It was confirmed that students generally have better access to computers outside school than within it, a situation largely ignored by policy. It was also found that experts in the field perceived increasing reliance upon generic office software as an outmoded ‘tool’ approach, and saw ICT as a ‘driver’ for transformative change in school education. School and classroom observations confirmed that local practice included transformative uses of ICT.

From these findings a possible general model of stages of development was derived. The model consisted of an introductory phase 1, where students in school first use computers and information technology becomes a subject choice; an integrative phase 2, where information and communication technologies are used to enhance learning opportunities in all traditional curriculum subject areas; and a transformative phase 3, where the curriculum clearly includes topics of study that would not exist without information and communication technologies and schooling for most students no longer fits the traditional group-instruction model.

The model has implications for alignment in policy development based upon a national cross-curriculum framework. It raises the importance for teacher professional development to include training in virtual teaching and the evaluation of digital materials. In particular there is a need to examine the alignment between conventional learning outcomes, policy and practice when ICT is much more available to students outside school than within.

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