According to a recent report, the construction of the Digital Village (DV) at Sama Jaya High Tech Park in Malaysia is set to begin this month (January 2019).
Tabung Ekonomi Gagasan Anak Bumiputera Sarawak (Tegas) has been given the mandate to undertake the project.
Its chairman, who is the Assistant Minister of Urban Planning said the teams involved in the construction have been given 18 months to complete the project.
However, because it must be fully completed the latest by March, next year, they have decided to push its completion period to 14 months from today.
It was noted that the teams will work diligently with the contractor to complete the project before the first quarter of next from today.
Of course, without compromising on the quality as required under the contract, the Assistant Minister noted at the handing over of the site to the contractor at Sama Jaya High Tech Park.
The RM27 million-project has been awarded to Hock Seng Lee Bhd.
It was noted that Tegas would also be working closely with the Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) to ensure the timely delivery and success of the DV.
Aside from that, Tegas is also collaborating with SMA in running the SMA-Tegas Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) in Kuching, Miri and Bintulu.
DIH serves as an inclusive avenue to nurture talents, support entrepreneurs and create innovators for Sarawak. DIH offers access to co-working space and shared amenities, funding opportunities and facilitation, incubation and acceleration programmes as well as an entrepreneur-friendly ecosystem.
The mission is to provide growth opportunities for early-stage start-ups and to build strong startup community across Sarawak.
The initiative is in line with the Chief Minister’s agenda to increase the number of successful technopreneurs and subsequently drive the state’s digital economy, it was noted.
Under the Sarawak Digital Economy Strategy 2018-2025 (Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Action 38), DV is established to facilitate technology transfer and commercialisation and accelerate the maturity of the start-ups through global accelerator partnership.
Initiatives at DV will include “Launch Sarawak” (Action 39) – a programme to provide a transformative pathway to support innovation, intellectual property creation and spin-offs, as well as Scale-up programmes and Open Lab.
The Sarawak Government through the SMA will also set up “Digital Landing Pads” (Action 40) overseas to promote Sarawak as a destination for high tech innovation and entrepreneurship like Silicon Valley or Shanghai, also to encourage both domestic and foreign investments.
The SMA General Manager said the DV will further expand the impact of their established start-ups, by imbuing them with cutting-edge technology, latest research, and up-to-date digital skills.
He noted that it will play a significant role in establishing and developing localised knowledge in Sarawak, and put Sarawakian technopreneurs and start-ups on the world map, adding that, together with all the partners within the digital ecosystem, it is expected that this initiative will create success stories that will be the pride of the state and the nation.
Several high-ranking government employees were at the handing over of site ceremony.
