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Propelling the nation forward with Malaysia 5.0 tech
Accelerated digital transformation for Indonesia Industry 4.0
The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) in partnership with the Malaysian branch of an American multinational technology company have launched the “Highway to a 100 Unicorns” initiative, which is part of a joint initiative to empower local start-ups and strengthen Malaysia’s start-up ecosystem.
Eligible start-ups will gain access to focused workshops on business and technology, as well as monthly knowledge-sharing webinars with the global start-up community. Additionally, the top start-ups from Malaysia will stand to gain from a year-long mentorship program, access to enterprise clients, as well as engagement opportunities with the firm’s experts and industry leaders.
The Managing Director of the tech firm’s Malaysia arm stated that the country has a vibrant start-up ecosystem, and they play a vital role in the economy as innovators, disruptors. In partnering with MDEC and MaGIC, the firm introduced the ‘Highway to a 100 Unicorns’ initiative in Malaysia.
The initiative is part of the firm’s collective commitment to empowering local start-ups with the right technology and expertise, enabling them to scale and achieve more globally. The start-ups could potentially become tomorrow’s unicorns, helping to shape economic recovery and resilience and build a stronger long-term future in Malaysia.
The Chief Executive Officer of MDEC stated that Kuala Lumpur has been ranked 11th among emerging start-up ecosystems in the world by Startup Genome, which adds to the confidence that Malaysia is primed to be the preferred land and expansion base for the best innovators and tech start-ups regionally.
As the spearhead of Malaysia’s digital economy, the CEO highlighted that MDEC is firmly committed to assisting tech start-ups in their fundraising journey, global market expansion, and forging corporate partnerships to entrench Malaysia, “as the Heart of Digital ASEAN.”
The CEO of MaGIC noted that the Highway to a 100 Unicorns initiative is in line with their commitment to driving the development of a sustainable start-up and social enterprise ecosystem in Malaysia.
While steady growth has been witnessed over the years, the entire ecosystem has been challenged to innovate and accelerate its growth at a much faster pace in recent times. This initiative presents an exciting opportunity for Malaysian innovators and founders to scale and move beyond borders, through global collaborations, as well as industry-led mentorship and guidance.
Starting point
To be considered for the initiative, start-ups will first have to apply to the Emerge X competition. There are three criteria for Emerge X, which are:
- Business-to-Business companies with product-market fit, revenue-generating with at least 3-4 clients.
- Business-to-Consumer companies with a large customer base (upward of 100K customers) and are revenue-generating.
- Funding is a plus.
All Emerge X start-ups will be awarded free GitHub and Azure credits and focused business and technology workshops.
The top finalists from Malaysia will be announced in November, joining other shortlisted innovators and entrepreneurs from 16 other Asia Pacific countries, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.
Additionally, the finalists will benefit from a year-long mentorship with technical and business deep dives, a Founder Bootcamp over 3 days, access to enterprise clients globally through Microsoft’s unique co-sell program as well as opportunities to interact with Microsoft experts and industry stalwarts.
The Highway to Unicorn programme was first launched by the firm for start-ups in India, where only 56 start-ups were selected to the Emerge X program from six states, which have over 15,000 start-ups. The Emerge X winners have greatly benefited from global market access support, a 3-day founder bootcamp with world-class mentors, access to funding, ongoing mentorship, and guidance on Azure, artificial intelligence, machine learning and more. Following the success, the programme has been extended to the Asia Pacific region.
The Government Communications Security Bureau’s (GCSB) National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) helps government agencies and organisations of national significance protect and defend their information systems against cyber-borne threats that are typically beyond the capability of commercially available products and services.
The NCSC works closely with CERT NZ (Computer Emergency Response Team) to provide guidance and help on cyber threats. CERT NZ helps business, organisations and individuals wanting prevention and mitigation advice on online security issues that do not require the NCSC’s specialist skills and knowledge to respond to. It has primary responsibility for cyber threat reporting and a coordination role in threat response.
With elections over, the NZ government can resume business which is good news for tech. NZ Cert, the government entity that tracks cyber breaches, feels that the economic growth policy takes a leaf out of the Singapore playbook, with a focus on industry transformation.
During the first lockdown, cabinet refocused their industry policy on specific sectors that were well-positioned for and would benefit from a high-intensity and high-investment strategy – digital tech, advanced manufacturing and sections of food and fibre. These sectors were considered sectors that had the potential to become highly productive and internationally competitive.
The Digital Technology Industry Transformation Plan (ITP) has been gotten off to a solid start. The ITPs provide a framework to proactively and collaboratively drive change with the government that would encourage and drive the growth of the tech sector.
Collaborative workstreams are exploring education pathways to accelerate the development of local skills. Changes in procurement approaches to stimulate the local tech sector have been put in place and the government is looking to get a better understanding of tech export successes. Work on the advanced manufacturing ITP has also started and this should be beneficial to the high-tech manufacturing and biotechnology parts of the tech sector. The government has also significantly worked on the development of a national AI strategy and data-driven innovation.
All of this in an effort to develop a robust narrative for a strong tech story for New Zealand.
As has been happening across the globe, COVID has dramatically increased New Zealand’s reliance on digital devices and the internet. Yet, NZTech Chief Executive Graeme Muller said CERT NZ research indicated that New Zealanders are not adjusting their behaviours around cybersecurity fast enough.
The research found 87% of the country’s respondents acknowledge security of their personal information online is important but 40% say safeguarding their information is inconvenient. About a third do not regularly check the privacy settings on their social media accounts and the same number do not use two-factor authentication when logging into an online account. Even with increasing news reports about security issues such as ransomware, identity theft and hacks, people still do not think it will happen to them or their business, Muller says.
He quoted a recent global analysis of hacks and data breaches that estimated it would cost three million dollars on average for a company to recover from a successful hack. For the average New Zealand company, this could be disastrous, so business owners need to take cybersecurity seriously.
Similarly, consequences from breach of personal data, identity theft, ransomware, fraud and direct monetary loss could be significant. According to CERT NZ’s quarterly data, thousands of Kiwis are subject to cyber blackmail and fraud every year due to their complacency around simple security measures.
CERT NZ ran its Cyber Smart Week 2020 campaign from October 19 – 23, 2020. The main goal of the initiative is to increase the cyber resilience of New Zealanders making them, and the nation, less vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in collaboration with a local tech reseller and an American tech manufacturer to launch a new technological learning space, the AktivUKM ruang space for students and the entire campus community. The Vice-Chancellor of UKM stated that the AktivUKM™ space is the first learning space in public universities in Malaysia, which involves strategic collaboration with industry.
The idea of establishing the AktivUKM™ space begun with the aim of aligning with the UKM Strategic Plan 2019-2021 with the concept of House of Quality where Teaching-UKM has been given the mandate to realize the Empowerment of Teaching and Learning and Talent Outreach.
In line with the mandate, the establishment of the AktivUKM™ space is expected to empower students with relevant and futuristic skills to face the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The space was created as a knowledge hub that connects students, lecturers and UKM staff.
Its location, located in the Tun Sri Lanang Library, makes it a bridge to connect knowledge in the physical world and the digital world. True to its name, AktivUKM™ is symbolic to drive digital teaching and learning activities among campus residents and the community.
Apart from that, he said, the skills cultivated in the space are expected to provide students, lecturers and UKM staff to share, inspire, impart knowledge and further be able to increase the marketability of graduates.
Through this learning space, students will join the two industry partners in gaining hands-on experience and live digital and futuristic skills for their future careers. Students can also work with digital experts in the space to apply active learning with an American multinational technology company technology as well as develop and create innovative digital materials with futuristic space and technology.
In addition, the AktivUKM™ space provides a hub for lecturers to further strengthen strategic alliances with Apple in transforming teaching and learning (PdP) approaches. With this network, technology experts will be with lecturers in redesigning teaching with Apple’s futuristic ecosystem technology in line with Education 4.0. Lecturers can also create and innovate in PdP and in turn drive education based on the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Preparing Malaysian youth with digital skills
The current COVID-19 pandemic has made it apparent that equipping the workforce with digital skills is imperative for economic recovery. To enable this, the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) has introduced a Digital Skills Training Directory during its recent #MyDigitalWorkforce Week, an initiative to assist youth job-seekers and the unemployed.
The CEO of MDEC said the directory would act as a guide for Malaysians in selecting digital courses that meet their career needs. The introduction of the directory is consistent with the agency’s focus on developing digitally-skilled Malaysians. It will be the go-to guide for all Malaysians and the workforce on what to look out for when it comes to digital tech up-skilling and re-skilling programmes.
Businesses that are looking to hire personnel and have plans to equip talent with relevant digital tech skills can refer to the digital-first focused directory catalogue as it lists down courses that address in-demand digital skills. In addition, most of the courses have been approved for funding – for organisations or talents – under the government’s National Economic Recovery Plan (PENJANA) Hiring Incentive that the Social Security Organisation (Socso) manages.
Should the candidates require training, up to RM4,000 training subsidy will be available for the unemployed who are selected for recruitment by Socso-registered employers.
This arrangement is also available for unemployed Malaysians who are registered with the Socso Employment Insurance System.
The directory covers all areas of digital skills training, from beginner up to advance level. The courses on the list consist of data science (50 courses); cybersecurity (44 courses); animation (19 courses); game development (five courses); and software development (55 courses). These include, but are not limited to, data science, cybersecurity, animation, game development, and software development for the new digital era.
JTC and the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) signed a Memorandum of Understanding yesterday to support manufacturers, especially SMEs, to kick-start their Industry 4.0 journey or to scale their current efforts through the adoption of technologies and solutioning for business operations through the new JTC-SBF Industry Transformation Initiative.
This initiative will provide companies that are keen in furthering their Industry 4.0 ambitions access to relevant Industry 4.0 related resources.
These include curated workshops, capability building initiatives tailored to companies’ digital readiness, and link-ups to a larger pool of technology partners and its consortiums, for solution matching to help companies develop the expertise to implement and scale Industry 4.0 solutions in their operations.
Over 300 companies are expected to be supported under this initiative and undergo Industry 4.0 transformation in the next two years. This will help them to develop new capabilities for their workforce, enhance its productivity and ensure long-term competitiveness.
Mr Tan Boon Khai, CEO of JTC, said, “SBF is an instrumental partner to drive the next phase of Industry 4.0 transformation by companies. With our large base of customers, strong network of partners, and robust advanced manufacturing ecosystem in Jurong Innovation District, more companies can become the forerunner in Industry 4.0. With this new partnership, we hope to see more businesses in Singapore transform and capture new growth opportunities in the region.”
Mr Ho Meng Kit, Chief Executive Officer of SBF, said, “The COVID-19 situation has brought disruptions to economies, making businesses rethink strategies, relook operating models and recalibrate resources. This has led to an accelerated need for a better understanding and adoption of Industry 4.0 to help local enterprises emerge stronger from the pandemic.
With the present downturn expected to be protracted, we hope that through this JTC-SBF partnership, we can further encourage more companies to take a holistic view at how Industry 4.0 solutions can help their businesses transform and thrive in the future economy.”
New initiatives to support and accelerate the next phase of Industry 4.0 transformation
This new collaboration will allow JTC and SBF’s combined network of companies to more easily access relevant Industry 4.0 resources across JTC and SBF’s networks and platforms.
Together with partners, joint engagement sessions will be carried out to further strengthen the various initiatives and encourage higher adoption of solutions for businesses to scale up their Industry 4.0 capabilities.
Companies can participate in curated training workshops and capability building programmes tailored to their level of Industry 4.0 readiness, and develop roadmaps to guide their implementation.
They will gain access to successful case studies and embark on learning journeys at Factories of the Future, giving them greater exposure to Industry 4.0 solutions in real production facilities. This will further encourage companies to transform and remain competitive amidst the pandemic.
Building a collaborative community through Industry Connect to help businesses capture new Industry 4.0 opportunities
This partnership with SBF is part of JTC’s ongoing efforts to build a collaborative community that can help companies to stay ahead of the curve. In January this year, JTC launched the Industry Connect Initiative to help businesses across its estates grow through technology adoption while enhancing talent development and environmental sustainability.
With over 14,000 customers, JTC can effectively promote business transformation to these companies by connecting them to solutions providers, trade associations, and government agencies.
To date, over 1,000 businesses in JTC’s estates have been engaged through various Industry 4.0 outreach initiatives, with around 200 companies embarking on their Industry 4.0 journey.
Leading players in the business community are sharing relevant technologies and experience to address problems faced by various industries. This has created new opportunities for businesses and their workers.
The National Super Computing Mission (NSM) of India is making significant headway in boosting the high power computing capacity in the country. The nation is rapidly expanding its supercomputer facilities and developing the appropriate capacity to manufacture its supercomputers in the country.
The NSM is jointly steered by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) and Department of Science and Technology (DST) and implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.
The National Super Computing Mission is deploying a phased strategy through its various arms to meet the increasing computational demands of academia, researchers, MSMEs, and startups in areas like oil exploration, flood prediction as also genomics and drug discovery.
With the infrastructure planned in NSM Phase-I already installed and much the infrastructure of Phase-II in place, the network of supercomputers through the country will soon reach to around 16 Petaflops (PF). Phase-III, to be initiated in January 2021, will take the computing speed to around 45 Petaflops.
Param Shivay, the first supercomputer assembled indigenously, was installed in IIT (BHU), followed by Param Shakti and Param Brahma at IIT-Kharagpur and IISER, Pune, respectively.
Thereafter supercomputing facilities were set up in two more institutions, and one is being set up in Phase-I, ramping up high power computing speed to 6.6 PF under Phase-1. In Phase-II, 8 more institutions will be equipped with supercomputing facilities by April 2021, with a total of 10 PF compute capacity. Work on Phase-III will start in 2021 and will include three systems of 3 PF each and one system of 20PF as a national facility.
MoUs have been signed with 14 premier institutions of India to establish supercomputing infrastructure along with assembly and manufacturing capacity within the country. These include IITs, NITs, National Labs, and IISERs. While some of these have already been installed, more will be done by December this year. The Phase-II installations will be completed by April 2021.
The three phases will provide access to High-Performance Computing (HPC) Facilities to 75 institutions and thousands of active researchers and academicians working through Nation Knowledge Network (NKN) – the backbone for supercomputing systems.
HPC and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have converged together. A 100 AI PF Artificial Intelligence supercomputing system is being created and installed in C-DAC, which can handle incredibly large-scale AI workloads increasing the speed of computing-related to AI several times.
The mission has also created the next generation of supercomputer experts by training more than 2400 supercomputing manpower and faculties till date.
Powered by the NSM, India’s network of research institutions, in collaboration with the industry, is scaling up the technology and manufacturing capability to make more and more parts in India. While in Phase-I, 30% value addition is done in India, that has been scaled up to 40% in Phase-II.
Efforts are being made to design and develop parts like server board, interconnect, processor, system software libraries, storage, and HPC-AI converged accelerator domestically. India has developed an Indigenous server (Rudra), which can meet the HPC requirements of all governments and PSUs. This is the first time that a server system was made in India, along with the full software stack developed by C-DAC.
Experts said that the pace at which things are moving forward, we may soon have the motherboards and sub-systems manufactured in India, making the supercomputers indigenously designed and manufactured.
Such indigenously designed systems with most parts designed and manufactured in India will be installed at places like IIT-Mumbai, IIT-Chennai, and Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) at Delhi, C-DAC, Pune, which are covered under Phase-III and help move towards supercomputers developed and manufactured totally in India paving the way for self-reliance in the field.
As the world moves towards the digitisation of the economy, the adverse impact of financial crime in banks and other financial institutions is accelerating rapidly. The shift to a work-from-home system as a result of the pandemic has increased the vulnerability of remote financial sector employees whose devices lack adequate security.
There is so much fraud that goes unidentified and cannot be accounted for. As a result, fraud prevention is one of the top areas of concern for the financial sector industry today.
To understand and alleviate the relevant pain points of digital executives from the financial sector industry in Thailand, OpenGov Asia hosted an OpenGovLive! Virtual Breakfast Insight that explored how Advanced Analytics, AI and Machine Learning can power the next-generation of compliance.
The full house of delegates at this event was a testimony to the relevance and importance of this topic among financial sector executives from Thailand.
Bad actors in the digital space are getting harder to identify as they are using the same technology as us
The event began promptly with Mohit Sagar, Group Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief, OpenGov Asia introducing participants and laying the ground for the discussion ahead.
Mohit emphasized the increased risk of fraud and money laundering in the financial sector industry in the current atmosphere. Bad actors in the digital space are leveraging the same advanced technology as legitimate organisations with a destructive mindset – and no restrictions of regulation and compliance.
This makes it imperative for financial sector institutions to augment and bolster their existing fraud protection through Advanced Analytics, AI and Machine Learning.
Mohit shed to light on the importance of sound leadership in these trying times and urged all to think as responsibly as leaders do.
He left the audience with advice to partner with experts who excel at utilising technology to strengthen compliance and fraud protection rather than losing this valuable time in understanding and enabling it themselves.
Innovation, adoption, and maturity: three phases of AI and ML adoption cycle in financial institutions
Ahmed: Other stakeholders in the industry recognizing and supporting the use of AI and ML in anti-money laundering initiatives
After Mohit’s opening, Ahmed Drissi, Anti-Money Laundering Lead, APAC, SAS elaborated on the detailed features of SAS’s money laundering solution. Ahmed spoke about the challenges in using traditional AML solutions and how SAS solutions overcome these shortcomings.
He further shared in detail of other the recognition and support for AI and ML in anti-money laundering initiatives by stakeholders in other industries.
Ahmed expounded on the three phases of AI and ML adoption cycle that include innovation, adoption, and maturity as demonstrated by various global and regional banks.
He shed some more light on the various AI/ML use cases in AML. These include entity resolution, customer segmentation, post alert scoring, model detection, tuning and optimisation. Being an expert in the field, he was able to articulately and authoritatively share details of the above-mentioned use cases with the delegates.
Banks and financial institutions must focus on simplifying and strengthening compliance
After Ahmed’s information-rich presentation, Viswanathan Namasivayam, Advisor for Data Science Enterprise Architecture, Data and AI Group at UnionBank Philippines gave his insights and opinions on the topic.
An advocate of simplification of compliance for banks and financial institutions, Viswanathan bases his conviction on the dramatic rise in fraud and hacking incidents he has observed.
He also believes in the power of advanced technology like AI/ML to mitigate these risks as it offers institutions the ability to go beyond a single representation of an individual or an entity, rendering a better understanding of the fraud risk.
Viswanathan shared a recent case study from Germany with the delegates to bring home the point that using AI in technology and security is inevitable in today’s world of increased cyber risk. The case study is a classic example of the consequences of failing to manage the risk associated with fintech companies. He also cautioned the audience that incidents like these would trigger more stringent and tighter regulations.
He completely agreed with Ahmed’s opinion about regulators and supervisors in the industry who also see a lot of value in using technology in this space.
Viswanathan concluded his presentation by pointing to the fundamental shift in financial institution’s approach in the handling of fraud incidences – moving from being reactive to proactive.
None the less, Vishwanathan ended on an optimistic note – acknowledging that this fundamental shift in institutions of becoming more proactive is a significant step for them in their journey towards a having a robust fraud and risk management system.
After these two insightful presentations, the event moved into the more participatory part of the session: polling and discussions.
On the question about the extent to which your organisation is incorporating AI/ML learning capabilities in your risk and compliance programmes, a majority of the delegates voted that they are using AI/ML across risk and compliance, including financial crime – watchlist filtering, sanction screening, and/or transaction monitoring (63%).
A senior delegate from a major bank shared that they are using AI and ML for other functions like data prediction and collection, sales, and contacting their customers but are still evaluating the advantages of AI to be implemented across all risk and compliance programmes.
On the next question about conducting or the need to conduct proper investigations on suspicious transactions and the availability of a sufficient platform to help with the investigation process, most delegates indicated that they have a platform providing these capabilities (63%).
Ahmed was happy to know about this trend and it was in keeping in with their expectation that most banks in Thailand have the proper platform and investigation tools in place.
On the final question about having a real-time fraud detection, prevention, and monitoring solution that is working together with an AML solution, the delegates overwhelmingly voted that they have a fraud system but it is separate from the AML solution (76%).
Another senior executive from a major bank shared that he voted for the above as they have two different departments taking care of fraud monitoring and anti-money laundering n their organisation. In the same vein, he shared that it would be good to have an integrated system over time.
After the polling session Nutapone Apiluktoyanunt, Managing Director, SAS Thailand came forward to close the session. He thanked all the delegates for taking the time to participate in the session and share their invaluable insights.
He also encouraged the delegates to reach out to team SAS if they have any questions or want to get more clarity on the solutions shared during the presentations.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has expressed complete support for the vision of e-governance as outlined in the Senate Bill 1738 (E-Governance Act of 2020) as a means of institutionalising e-Governance in the Philippines to cope with the transition to the new normal and the challenges posed by the COVID-19 threat.
“In an age where almost everything can be done online and through other digital platforms, the government must harness the power of information and communications technology to better serve its purpose and bring the government closer to the people,” Senator Go, who filed the Bill on 27 July 2020.
The DICT was confident that the Bill when enacted, would complement and enhance the current efforts it has undertaken to transform public service delivery through prioritisation of digitalisation initiatives.
“We are ramping up our digitalisation plans to accelerate solid client-responsive reforms, and the filing of Senator Go of the Bill is a welcome development towards an apparently shared vision between the Executive and the Legislative when it comes to national digital transformation,” DICT Secretary Gregorio B. Honasan II said. “Digital transformation should be done with interoperation as a long-term goal and with client experience always as a top consideration.”
The proposed legislation aims to establish an integrated and interoperable information system for the whole of government, an internal records management system, an information database, and digital portals for government services. The bill also aims to do away with paper-based and outdated models of bureaucratic work within government agencies and units to improve efficiency.
It envisions the establishment of the Integrated Government Network (IGN) which would serve as the primary mode of information and resource sharing among the government and function as the government’s focal information management tool and communications network.
DICT is currently focusing on interconnecting government agencies and integrating their services towards a long-term target of seamless interoperation. The Department is focusing on various digitalisation solutions under its ICT-enabled government agenda, which includes both a strengthening of existing platforms as well as looking into inter-sectoral initiatives to improve public service delivery for a recalibrated Digital Government.
DICT is enhancing government interconnectivity with the Philippine Government Network (GovNet), that provides government offices with high-speed broadband connection linked to a secure data centre, allowing the processing and transfer of sizeable data for more efficient public services. GovNet interconnects government agencies to promote better information exchange and improve the accessibility of resources.
Additionally, the department continuously provides efficient and quality services through the National Government Portal (NGP), a centralised platform where citizens can currently access 231 e-Government services online through www.gov.ph for easier navigation. Another key program to integrate government services is the National Government Data Center (NGDC) Project, which addresses the ICT system needs of government agencies by providing centralised locations where computing and networking equipment shall be housed.
DICT Department supports efforts to promote ease of doing business through the NationalBusinessOne-Stop-Shop(NBOSS), which was launched in partnership with the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA), to allow for the simpler business registration process that can be completed within 7 and a half days. Similarly, the Central Business Portal (CBP) complements the NBOSS as the online platform that receives business applications and links registrants to the concerned government unit/agency to complete the transactions.
The Department is also gearing for e-Government interoperability for 2021 through a portfolio of inter-sectoral initiatives it is currently developing, in line with the recommendations of the “We Recover as One” Report of the IATF-MEID’s Technical Working Group (TWG) for Anticipatory and Forward Planning (AFP).
With these enhanced initiatives in place, the DICT affirms its commitment to lead efforts towards government digital transformation in support of the President’s directives and parallel to the legislative push for digitalisation of services.
“We are extending all efforts to transform how we deliver public services, how we transact with the people, and how we move forward in the new normal by maximising the benefits of information and communications technology,” Secretary Honasan said.
The Vietnam government strongly believes that ensuring safety in cyberspace will accelerate the process of national digital transformation as it is the key to a successful and sustainable digital transformation.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the ITU Digital World 2020, Minister Nguyen Manh Hung said that Vietnam considers digital platforms as a way to accelerate national digital transformation, considering cybersecurity a key factor to create digital trust and Institutional reform the decisive factor for digital transformation. Vietnam considers digital platforms as a way to accelerate national digital transformation, considering cybersecurity a key factor to create digital trust and institutional reform the decisive factor for digital transformation.
Vietnamese technology not only solves Vietnamese problems but also contributes to solving global problems. The platforms showcased in ITU Digital World 2020 online exhibition and the technological solutions in the prevention of Covid-19, such as Bluezone and Ncovi, are concrete examples. According to Minister Nguyen Manh Hung, digital infrastructure with “Make in Vietnam” digital products and platforms are ready for the digital economy and society, ready for a digital Vietnam.
Vietnam has conditions to become a technology country, to use technology as a driving force for national development, to go at the same pace as other countries, for global cooperation and together build a digital world. The government considers telecommunications and IT infrastructure development one of the top priorities, and digital transformation an important solution for the country’s fast and sustainable development.
However, spam messages, e-mails and calls have been a burning issue for years in Vietnam. The issues of how to prevent spam have and are a topic of discussion at many National Assembly’s sessions.
After one year of compilation with many amendments, Decree 91 was issued by the government on August 14. The latest decree has many positive developments as compared to decrees 90 and 77 addressing the same issue. Legislators and experts are confident that the decree will have a significant impact on reducing spam in the Vietnamese digital landscape.
The strong measures were designed after learnings from the experience of developed countries were applied to strategies. Case in hand: since Australia started a DoNotCall list, 50% of subscribers have registered not to receive ad messages.
Decree 91 gives new definitions about spam messages and emails and adds a new concept about a ‘spam call’, which helps set the criteria for recognizing spam messages, calls and emails. The new decree mentions new measures for users to protect themselves from spam, including DoNotCall, the list of subscribers refusing advertising messages.
As the compiler of Decree 91 on fighting spam SMS, calls and messages, an official with the Authority for Information Security, Dang Huy Hoang, said he was happy that he could contribute to reducing ‘garbage’ in digital space, “All my enthusiasm and 8-year experience in fighting against spam are shown in the content of the decree.”
Hoang began working on the anti-spam segment in late 2012 and early 2013 when he had the chance to work with an expert at VNCERT. Since then, he has been fighting against spam. Hoang said over the last 10 years of working at the Ministry of Information and Communication, his colleague and he have been working determinedly to resolve the issues at hand. In addition to compiling Decree 91, he was also one of the compilers of circulars and other legal documents and set the criteria applied to technological solutions that recognize and authenticate genuine subscribers using artificial intelligence for prevention of spam messages.
Decree 91 also stipulates that mobile network operators have to improve techniques to prevent and filter spam, using modern technologies such as AI, Big Data, Machine Learning and behaviour analysis technology. The decree also sets new sanction methods to deter violators and protect users.
Soon after the decree was issued, Hoang and his colleagues put in place a plan to bring the decree to fruition. The new management mechanism is hoped to help mitigate spam and promote the legal advertising market and create a more secure digital ecosystem for the nation.
Recently OpenGov Asia reported don the sharp decrease in virus-infected computer networks in Vietnam. The initiative is a large-scale campaign aiming to ensure the safety and benefits of communities, businesses, individuals and families that use internet-connected devices that are networked in a cyber environment.
