Leaders from the public and private sectors collaborate on cloud-first and digital-native policy recommendations to accelerate the development of Malaysia’s globally competitive digital workforce

KUALA LUMPUR, 26 April 2021 – Leaders from the public sector, private sector, civil society, and academia are collaborating through the MyDigital Alliance Leadership Council: an effort to bolster Malaysia’s competitive digital workforce and enhance employability through transformative policies for education and skilling. This is in support of Malaysia’s MyDigital inclusive aspirations, by building agile and resilient talent and ensuring every person has equitable opportunities to thrive in Malaysia’s growing digital economy.

“Digital-first policies are critical towards uplifting society, driving inclusive economic growth, and increasing Malaysia’s competitiveness. To be a high-income economy, we need to put in place many reforms and introduce enablers. Technology and skills are fundamental catalysts, and the resilience of our digital talent will be the determining factor of our success moving forward,” said Dato’ Sri Mustapa Mohamed, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economy), who chaired the first meeting recently.

Dato’ Sri Mustapa emphasized that digital talent is one of the most important drivers of Malaysia’s digital economy. “For us to emerge stronger from the pandemic, skills need to be at the center of our economic reset. For this reason, I am encouraged by the opportunities presented by the MyDigital Alliance Leadership Council. Through robust public-private partnerships, we will continue towards a Digital Malaysia anchored on resilience, innovation, and inclusion.”

The MyDigital Alliance Leadership Council was formed by Microsoft as part of its Bersama Malaysia initiative, in partnership with the Social & Economic Research Initiative (SERI). The Alliance serves as a multi-stakeholder platform towards the development of transformative cloud-first and digital-native policy recommendations to advance the nation’s digital economy. The Alliance will comprise a series of multi-stakeholder meetings to inform the development of policy recommendations.

“As we face this public health and economic crisis, we are cognizant of the positive impact the digital economy can have on our nation and its people. We need to put in place technology policies that will ensure meaningful adoption of the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint nationwide,” said Dr Helmy Haja Mydin, Chief Executive Officer of SERI.

On the importance of enabling Malaysia’s digital talents, Dr Helmy added, “In a time of constant change and technological disruption, talent, education, and employability are critical enablers in ensuring that economic opportunities are democratized. Skills are the building blocks of an inclusive and resilient post-COVID economy. Together with Microsoft, we look forward to presenting to the Government our joint findings and recommendations on how we can achieve Malaysia’s ambition to become a digital-first nation.”

The inaugural convening of the MyDigital Alliance included representatives from government agencies, industry leaders, think-tanks, NGOs and academia, including the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Human Resources, PETRONAS, Human Resource Development Corporation (HRD Corp), TalentCorp, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), Yayasan Hasanah, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, and the National Blind Football Team.

“As Malaysia accelerates its pace of digitalization, people will continue to be at the heart of this transformation. We recognize that there is a need for us to continually skill, reskill and upskill our local workforce. This is particularly important as jobs of the future become increasingly digital in tandem with the globally expanding digital economy. This is why as part of Microsoft’s Bersama Malaysia initiative, we have pledged to bring digital skills to an additional 1 million Malaysians by December 2023. In achieving this, we will continue collaborating with the Government and our partners, including MAMPU, SERI, HRD Corp, TalentCorp, Grab Malaysia, SOCSO and Junior Achievement Malaysia, to transform and accelerate Malaysia’s inclusive digital economy,” said K Raman, Managing Director of Microsoft Malaysia.

Featured image (top): Dato’ Sri Mustapa Mohamed, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economy), chairing the inaugural meeting of the MyDigital Alliance Leadership Council.