MALAYSIA 2002-2020: WALKING ALONG THE HIGHWAY TO KNOWLEDGE
By Frederick Noronha

FROM A THIRD-WORLD country to a knowledge society in under two decades, is it possible? Malaysia dreams of it, and believes it can reach there... by adopting a route that relies on attracting hi-tech and talent, building its own talent base and setting up the infrastructure that makes all this possible.

This south-east Asian country of 22.6 million with 83% literacy, which was created in 1963 and has a multi-racial population, is moving over from its traditional dependence on rubber and tin to IT and knowledge. For attempting this leap into the unknown, it is using its industrial, agricultural and petroleum revenues to help make the jump.

Challenges are tough; but the mood is upbeat. One gets the it-is-possible feeling from a number of protagonists pushing working on these plans. Fuelled by the government's determined push, knowledge and IT is being seen as the new 'mantra'.

From mere IT (information technology), it has got transformed to ICT (information and communication technology). At one level, there is also a push towards ICT-for-D (ICTs for Development). It might possibly not end here, but the new mix thrown up by this alphabet-soup now is KICT (Knowledge Information and Communication Technologies).

To spread the message and widen the impact, no opportunity is spared.

For instance, songs tele-cast promoting the needs of harnessing IT. Government funding is helping to create some show-piece projects, like the Multimedia Super Corridor. Called the MSC, this project stresses the importance of creative multimedia, computer graphics and the entertainment sector as "value-adding components" to cut across entire industries.

MSC hopes to play the role of an "engine of growth" in "leapfrogging Malaysia into the knowledge-based economy". MSC, it is argued, could play the role of a hub in creating the ideal multimedia environment that attracts world-class companies.

This would both enhance domestic productivity and "create value from information-age businesses". It could then catalyze a "highly competitive cluster" of Malaysia multimedia and IT companies that "become world-class over time".

Economic Planning Unit deputy director general YM Raja Dato' Zaharaton Raja Zainal Abidin points to the ambitious Vision 2020, charted out by the high-profile Prime Minister Dr Mahatir Mohammed. "Malaysians should not be mere consumers of technologies, but should also be able to contribute to the development of new technologies," Abidin argues.

With this goal in mind, the Multimedia Super Corridor was set up some six years ago. This MSC aims to "create new sources of wealth" and also to "improve national productivity and technological competitiveness".

Special sops are being offered to units being set up at the MSC -- exemptions on local ownership requirements, unrestricted employment of foreign 'knowledge workers', and the like.

By February 2002, the Malaysian government says that out of the total of 635 MSC-status companies, fifty are world-class firms. These are projected to invest a total of Malaysian Ringitts 5.7 billion this year, and employ nearly 16,000 'knowledge workers'.

Malaysia's Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment also offers grants to "demonstrator applications" which are meant to showcase "innovation in concept and sustainability".

"We give out money...," half-jokes one official, as we visited parts of the Multimedia Super Corridor. There's an element of truth. But to get it, you need the Big Idea.

NITA is the National IT Agenda, one of whose goals is to make Malaysia a knowledge-based society by the year 2020. The Multimedia Super-Corridor
(MSC)
is another project. DAGS is the Demonstrator Applicator Grant Scheme. Officials point out that any individual or institution can apply for grants for community-based IT projects of one to two million Ringitt.

Grants are offered to Perdana DAs (large, national-level projects with strategic intent), Public Sector DAs (value-creation projects promoted by the federal ministries or departments or state governments) and People DAs (small, focussed projects promoted by individuals, groups of people or private companies).

Take the Agriculture Knowledge Integrator System (AKIS) that offers a web-enabled management system designed to support the Malaysian national drive towards "technology-intensive agricultural practices". Cybercare is another project aimed at building an 'electronic community' by connecting orphanages, home-administrators, the private and public sectors, and non-governmental organisations.

e-Farmasi is meant to offer citizens an "unbiased information about medicines, their use, and side effects".

e-Thalassaemia is a partnership between paediatricians and the Malaysian Open-Source Group. It connects all those connected with this serious ailment. It links Thalassaemic patients and their families, friends, medical personnel, social workers, volunteers, researchers, members of the public and even drum and medical suppliers. The aim is to have a place for "enrichment and education" where patients and related parties can exchange encouraging tips of healthcare.

Information here helps to alleviate suffering. But, more importantly, it helps to combat the spread of this fatal and life-threatening disorder. Self-help is the best help. This venture uses the Internet as an inexpensive, 24-hour medium of communication.

There are many other interesting ventures. Including Family Place for parents; Forensiknet a virtual hub of forensic medicine; Herbamalaysia.net using ICTs and multimedia for the local herbal industry; and karyanet.com.my to encourage new authors to write schorlarly publications. KaryaNet provides writers with training on writing techniques, and taking them through mentoring and editing stages before their books are published through the Internet.

E-WORLD: FASTER, BETTER

Another showcase of Malaysian striving towards 2020 is e-world. It promises to do the "same thing faster, better". Besides, e-world also promises to be a "different world altogether". The exhibition was opened by Dr Mahatir -- whose vision of what Malaysia should be looms large over the current day country -- in November 1999. Says a brochure, "Dr Mahathir was here!"

"The things we do may seem high-tech. (But) our mission is very simple. All this technology exists to improve your quality of life. It's here to make you happy," says an introduction to e-world, which is located at Kuala Lumpur's Technology Park Malaysia.

e-world has many sections. First is the history -- of how it came about.

"Our story begins in August 1984. After almost four years of struggling to find someone to fund a new R&D institute in microelectronics, Dr Tengku Mohd Azzman Shariffadeen, Dean of the University Malaya's Faculty of Engineering, lands in the Prime Minister's office," says e-world.

Years down the line, today it has some interesting products to show for.

MIMOS and UNDP to gether put up a Mobile Internet Unit, a bus full of computers that takes the Internet to rural areas. The bus has been converted to a mobile classroom.

There are in all some 14 buses taking computers to rural school-children all over Malaysia.

One of the projects is to create a PC that is "affordable to everybody". Well, almost...

Based on GNULinux, the free operating system, this simple computer will help the home user to achieve much of what he or she needs, while at the same time being "quite powerful".

It would primarily help users to surf the Internet, without possibly going the route of the fast-obsolescence computers that now dominate the market and offer those who can pay the powerful (but costly) computing resources that the average user simply doesn't really require.

Infonity's versions would be available for home and school/office purposes. "We are using the open source operating system, Linux. That saves cost (because of its 'free' and non-proprietary nature)," says Laurence Sebastian, corporate events executive of Mimos Berhad. This PC will also enable people to watch VCDs or play DVDs. Engineers there are in advanced stages of work, and expect it to be priced at significantly lower than market-rates that computers currently come by.

Another project deals with biometric technology, or fingerprint based access for the computer. Computers here can also recognise your iris -- after looking deep into your eye -- and decide whether to let you through or not!

'Bestari Home' is a project for the smart home system. "You can control your electrical appliances through your computer. It's a wireless system, so there's no need to break through walls to install it. Anything that goes through a power line can be controlled through such a system. Including feeding your pet fish in the tank," explains Sebastian. If there's a break in at your home, it's possible to get an alert via your mobile!

Work has also been done for other projects from here. Some work has also been taken up under a traffic management system, implemented in Istambul in 1996.

Efforts are also on to use computers to encourage "action learning" in the classroom. Cikgunet is a network for teachers. It offers an e-dictionary, an e-bookstore, previous exam question bank, and other resources that help make teachers more effective at their work.

Malaysia is working on a smart card that has digital signatures. Another project is to offer video on demand, given the growing entertainment demands of this society which expects to see per capita incomes grow over the next two decades.

Jaring is the first ISP in Malaysia. Flexicall offers Internet telephony, at the rate of 2 ringitt (under 50 cents US) per minute to Africa, for example.

Other work is also being done around KL, that would not only help make "life easier", but also improve Malaysia's influence on the competitive global marketplace of technology. Raslan Ahmad, PhD, head of the Social Digital Programme, says: "Information must become a utility, like water, power and the telephone."

MEL, the Micro Electronic Lab, is working to create more computing power by reducing the size of circuits, and fitting more electrical switches per chip. It also wants to pack entire systems -- computer engineering, plus memory and logic capabilities -- on each chip.

Meanwhile, the COL, or the Computing Lab, argues that being thin saves time and money -- even for computers! So, they've developed a thin-client computing system called NICE that "cuts the cost of networked computing by upto 60 per cent".

Its secret lies in doing away with the computer's hard disk or main storage device. The stripped-down computers (or thin clients) don't have individual operating systems like Windows, or software applications like Office.

All software is stored in a community-accessed computer called the server. So, network administration can be done centrally, bringing down the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Simple software upgrades can be done in minutes. Savings also come from using Free Software like GNULinux and the image-processing tool Gimp.

Wang Yee Chu, editor of the 'ITMalaysia' magazine, argues that the Malaysian government has done a lot to "ameliorate the downturn" in the IT industry.

"The government have provided the vision, planning, support and inspiration to foster the growth of this industry. Electronic Government, smart cards, smart schools, tele-medicine, R&D cluster, DAGS (the Demonstrator Applicator Grant Scheme) and a host of government and government-inspired initiatives have pushed the industry further forward," argues Chu in a recent issue of that journal.

Yet, the road to success is not an easy one. Critical voices however question the quality of companies that Malaysia has attracted. There are also suggestions that major firms prefer to locate their regional headquarters in Singapore or Hong Kong.

In its quest to become a knowledge-based society, Malaysia is also critical about its own need for more educational facilities, less overcrowded classes, and the need to produce students who are not "merely functional literates, good enough for manning factories".

Even official quarters are not smug about what it will take to go ahead.

MIMOS Berhad asks: "What does it take to move a whole country into the Information Age? It takes though, strategy, planning and -- most importantly
-- action." Will Malaysia achieve it? Well, time will tell...

QUOTE ................UNQUOTE

South Africa is well known for its (drive towards) universal access. The Universal Access Trust Fund was set up in the mid-nineties. It's interesting, because this emerged right after South Africa emerged from Apartheid, and needed its telecom services to cater to a far wider segment. The government entered into a deal with national telecom, offering it to retain its monopoly over a five year period, provided it reaches out to the local areas. -- Pierre Dandjinou, ICT-D Policy Advisor for Africa, UNDP.

Some politicians used to ask us to maintain information *for them*. Information is power. (Naturally politicians sometimes) don't want it to be spread everywhere. -- M Thierry Hyacinthe AMOUSSOUGBO, Coordinator, CISCO regional academy, Benin.

Our latest products (for data storage) is the super digital linear tape. The latest SDLT cartridge can store 120 years of editions of a tabloid newspaper, or 25 full-length feature movies. -- Li Peng, vice president, Quantum, Penang.

In 1970 this place (Penang) had a 15% unemployment rate. Today it has almost full employment. -- Officials at Quantum, Penang.

LINKS.............WEBSITES FROM PENANG

Penang Tourism site
Penang Development Corporation
Investment site, Penang