The Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Malaysian arm of an American multinational information technology company. The two will work together to promote and strengthen collaboration in digital sectors in the State of Sarawak with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain technologies.
Under the terms of the MOU, the tech firm will assist the state to manage efficiency and effectiveness of transformation to enable it to achieve its target to digitise its economy for its economic growth under the Digital Economy Strategy 2018-2022.
This includes a joint collaboration in the Centre of Excellence for Digital Economy to support research, research training, business development and commercialisation activities.
Sarawak is leveraging on emerging yet practical technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain to help it in its journey to be a digital state. Working with partners that have a strong track record such as the tech firm would help us in our journey to be a digital savvy state.
The first step is for SMA and the tech firm to form a joint working group to ensure proper coordination, progressive implementation and monitoring of research projects identified for development and commercialisation.
The MOU was exchanged during the International Digital Economy Conference Sarawak 2019 (IDECS 2019) in the presence of the state’s Chief Minister.
The two-day conference and exhibition also featured the Program Director at Research BD from the Singaporean arm of the tech firm and the Chief Technology Officer of the Malaysian arm. The pair facilitated sessions on the application of AI and blockchain technologies in agriculture and food trust for more than 100 government and business stakeholders.
The Managing Director of the Malaysian arm stated that the collaboration with SMA underscored the tech firm’s corporate and citizenship commitment to support the State Government’s agenda to transform Sarawak into a digitally dynamic and economically sustainable community.
The application of practical technologies from farm to table supply chain would create multiple benefits to improve the quality of life for the agriculture and related communities, in a cost-effective way.
It was noted that Sarawak was leading the pack in terms of technology-driven transformation. When compared with other states, Sarawak sets the tone for technology-driven transformation. An example of this is how the Sarawak ecosystem has been brought forward – the digital economy will be able to lead the way in making sure the transformation is being implemented.
Meanwhile, the tech firm is particularly very strong in driving the transformation especially in Industry 4.0, SMART City, smart farming and smart agriculture. In line with IDECS 2019’s tagline, the firm’s perspective is to collaborate with Sarawak initiatives and lives of the state’s residents are – to make it a better place and more digitalised, transformed place to work in.
Sarawak is one of the firm’s strategy to drive the geographical expansion plan. It has identified East Malaysia as one of its growth areas.
Thus, it is working to ensure that its function, responsibility and adherence to the MoU will be managed as a knowledge transfer expertise, and depending on the criticality of the Sarawak government to execute this in Sarawak.
It is hoped that the firm will continue to partner with the Sarawak government to drive the digital economy initiatives here and be part of the ecosystem here to build the businesses, the infrastructure and the technology transformation to the next level.
Moreover, partnerships with the state government and the private enterprises will enable the firm to have a strong presence here.
Thus, Sarawak, with all the initiatives, is ready to drive the technology transformation to the next level, leading the way in Malaysia.
