Challenge to take Malaysia further in IT indexes

BANGI: Malaysia aims to be among the top 10 in the information technology (IT) competitiveness index and top 20 in the digital economy index by 2020, in line with the national digital transformation plan.

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said this was because information technology was now seen as the key element that would revolutionise and support the growth of many industries.

These include the healthcare, communication and biotechnology industries.

"Malaysia moved 11 places from 32 to 21 in the recent world IT competitiveness index.

"In the digital economy ranking conducted by The Economist and IBM, Malaysia is now 36th among 70 countries.

"Take this challenge to help the country move up to the top 10 in the IT competitiveness index and top 20 in the digital economy index," he said at the second International Conference on Visual Informatics (IVIC) 2011 here yesterday.

His speech was read by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia  board of directors chairman, Tan Sri Dr Zulkefli A. Hassan.

The three-day seminar, attended by some 200 experts in the field of visual informatics from 15 countries, is hosted by UKM and jointly organised by 13 public and private universities in the country.

Themed "Visual Informatics: Sustainable Innovation towards Wealth Creation", the seminar is chaired by seven professors from renowned universities, including Cambridge University and Imperial College, London.

Present were IVIC chair Prof Datuk Dr Halimah Badioze Zaman and UKM deputy vice-chancellor (students and alumni affairs) Prof Ir Othman A. Karim.

Global problems, local answer

The task: Design technological solutions that can be applied to real-world
issues.

From left are Jun Liang, Chien Hui and Kian Long.

From left are Loo, Phiong, Ooi and Liew.

Three undergraduate teams rose up to the challenge brilliantly and won this year’s national-level Imagine Cup Competition, organised by Microsoft.
Rozana Sani writes.
Say goodbye to food supply shortage From left are Jun Liang, Chien Hui and Kian Long.
Champion: Team Capricorn comprising Marilyn Lim Chien Hui, Steven Lim Jun Liang and Lim Kian Long, Universiti Sains Malaysia Winning entry: GreenEve2Peace, a software solution designed to help farmers consider multiple elements affecting crop production, with the end goal of increasing crop yields n Conquering worldwide famine was what Team Capricorn had in mind when they designed GreenEve2Peace, and it proved to be a winner. The software solution not only can systematically address the issue of food supply shortage, but also improve rice productivity yields and eliminate any damage on Earth resources, for example, overuse of chemicals such as pesticides.
Aimed at the agriculture sector, GreenEve2Peace provides accurate and up-todate weather predictions, channels information related to farming activities, acts as an early warning and alert system for crops viruses and diseases, and even offers advice on the timing and amount of pesticides, fertilisers and chemicals to help reduce damage to the environment.
Weather prediction is done by crunching all data elements based on Historical Actual Weather Event, Historical Predicted Weather Event and Historical Recommended Farming Schedule by the Muda Agricultural Development Authority (MADA) or the relevant bodies.
“We deployed a Backpropagation Neural Network Algorithm to establish a pattern and a weighted index to relate the weather events. With the weighted index, we applied it to the future predicted event to advise the farmer on activities such as seeding, fertilising and cultivating,” said team leader Lim Kian Long.
In terms of communication, GreenEve2Peace uses all mechanisms available today such as the Internet, text messaging and community network to relay information related to farming activities.
Technology used includes Windows Presentation Foundation, SQL Server 2008, Silverlight and Neural Network.
“To reduce damages of padi culture due to inappropriate water level and toxicity, we hope to enhance our system with water management solutions such as a water-level monitoring system and watertoxicity diagnostic system. We hope to get a grant from MDeC (Multimedia Development Corporation) to commercialise this system in six months. We will work closely with MADA to implement the system stage by stage,” Kian Long said.
“We will also extend our solution to include other agriculture sectors such as livestock (chicken, duck and pig) and fishery, and to our neighbouring countries once we have successfully implemented the system nationwide.” A company from India has expressed interest in GreenEve2Peace.
Team Capricorn will represent Malaysia at the worldwide finals in Cairo, Egypt, from July 3 to 7.
Disease prevention first First runner-up: Team Cosmic comprising Jasy Liew Suet Yan, Loo Wan Koe, Ooi Keng Siang and Matthew Phiong Yoon Kheong, Universiti Sains Malaysia Winning entry: Virtual Health Connect, a software solution that acts as a one-stop centre to electronically store patients’ health information n Team Cosmic’s passion is to help improve the well-being of society through disease prevention initiatives, and it shows in their product.
Virtual Health Connect (VHC) aims to reduce child mortality rates and fight diseases such as malaria, dengue and AIDS by becoming a one-stop centre to electronically store patients’ health information, especially immunisation records. It enables realtime discoveries and monitoring of infectious diseases, presenting health information in a simple, interactive manner.
VHC covers three main areas: immunisation monitoring, disease reporting and response management, as well as interactive health education.
“Using a multi-tier system architecture, all the three main modules run in a server, and users can easily access VHC using a Web browser.
“VHC also interacts with patients through SMS to send immunisation reminders to parents and precautionary messages to the public during an outbreak,” said team spokesperson Jasy Liew Suet Yan.
Technology used includes Windows Live, Silverlight, Virtual Earth, Windows Communication Foundation, ASP.Net, .Net 3.5 Framework and SQL Server.
Team Cosmic is looking for partners to take VHC to the next level, including IP protection and commercialisation.
“We will continue to explore breakthrough technologies in hopes of using the wonders of technology to make a difference in people’s lives. Even VHC is scalable, and we still have many ideas that can be materialised since healthcare is such a huge domain,” Liew said.
From left are Loo, Phiong, Ooi and Liew.
Second runner-up: Team J-TourCare comprising Ng Pek Shi, Pang Yee Yong, Gilbert Puah Leong Siang and Wong Sun Shah, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Winning entry: Johor Tourism Caring System, an interactive Web-based knowledge management portal for sustainable tourism n Team J-TourCare saw the online platform as not only able to promote eco-tourism in Johor, but also as generate income for the rural community. Their Webbased knowledge management portal, Johor Tourism Caring System, or J-TourCare, allows stakeholders to interact, educate and promote sustainable tourism to the public while offering homestay packages, eco-tourism programmes, community service projects and even the managing of the Johor Tourism Award.
“Through J-TourCare, homestay and eco-tourism will be able to bring substantial income to underprivileged rural folks, single parents and women entrepreneurs operating the programmes in Johor,” said team leader Ng Pek Shi.
For example, the homestay programmes can afford employment opportunities for the community in general, generate income for idle assets, and encourage the community to develop products and become community-based entrepreneurs.
“J-TourCare also offers a venue for volunteers from all over the world to take part in community service programmes at the homestay and eco-tourism sites, besides being an avenue for sponsors to pledge monetary support. This global partnership will enrich the lives of the participants through their direct involvement in the conservation efforts,” Ng pointed out.
To spur players in the Johor tourism value chain, J-TourCare provides an efficient ranking system to help them select high performers within the tourism industry. The high performers are voted by the public through various methods, including SMS.
“Proceeds from the public voting system will go towards assisting tourism operators for further improvements and preserving the culture and biodiversity of the eco-tourism sites identified by the public,” Ng said.
Technology used in J-TourCare include ASP.Net 3.5, C#.Net, Javascript, AJAX, CSS, HTML, VBscript, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2005 and ActiveXpert.
The Johor Tourism Action Council has expressed interest to use J-TourCare to promote its homestay and eco-tourism programmes.
“We imagine that in time J-TouCare will be expanded to cover Malaysia and the rest of the world and become a successful hub for caring and sustainable tourism,” Ng said.

Malaysia must intensity IT efforts(Monash University Sunway)

Saadat M. Alhashmi

THE next three to five years are crucial for Malaysia to make its mark on the Information Technology (IT) sector, a Monash University Sunway campus academic says. “Countries such as Vietnam and China are growing fast and we need to hasten our pace if we want to turn Malaysia into an IT hub,” says the university’s School of Information Technology head Dr Saadat M. Alhashmi.

“If we don’t pick up our pace, we might miss the boat,” he says, adding that Computer Science degrees and computer analysis skills will continue to be demanded in the IT field.

He was responding to Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong who said recently that Malaysia is facing a shortage of talents in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector, and that there has been “a significant dip” in students enrolling on ICT courses.
Saadat, who echoed this concern, s ay s that the government, industry and universities need to nurture IT talent within institutions of higher learning.

“We have reached a point where this is a crisis. Big players will only come if they see talent here… there is no point setting up a company and then outsourcing to India.” India, he says, is becoming more expensive, causing companies to look for alter natives. Malaysia is poised to make an impact in the IT sector.

Saadat adds that through the school’s engagement with industry via its Industrial Insight Programme, companies are actively seeking students who can join them upon graduating.
“We have more offers than we have students,” he says, adding industry players search for students with IT know-how, married with soft skills.

UTM to be given full autonomy

The alumni of a long-established university can play a big part in contributing to an endowment fund for use in scholarship programmes, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said yesterday.

   He added that alumni members could contribute not only money, but also share their knowledge in the provision of  internship programmes to  undergraduates.

 

Citing a case, Khaled said if each of the 140,000 alumni members of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) were to give RM10, the collection would come to RM1.4 million.

 

  Khaled said this after attending the presentation of endowment scholarship certificates and offer letters to participants in the "Five Excellent Tracks" programme at UTM here.

 

  The first batch, comprising 52 undergraduates of the academic session 2011/2012, received the scholarship certificates and the offer letters.

 

  The "Five Excellent Tracks" programme  helps students to excel in at least one of these fields: leadership,  studies, entrepreneurship, sports and Quranic teachings. 

 

  A total of RM2.5 million in scholarship had been set aside for high achievers at the university this year.

 

  The fund, which was introduced last year, has  grown to RM31.9 million, surpassing its target of RM20 million with contributions from the university's alumni, staff, student associations, companies and the public.

 

  Khaled also announced that UTM was one of the universities in the country to be given full autonomy starting this year. 

 

  This will enable the university to enjoy complete governance in institutional, academic, financial and human resource management matters.

 

  Khaled said he would give the names of the other universities to be accorded similar status after the Chinese New Year.

 

  Khaled said it was the vision of UTM to enable every undergraduate to study for free by the year 2020. 

 

  The success of the endowment fund system will attract quality graduates to UTM, motivate students to achieve excellence as well as reduce the burden of the government to maintain the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) undergraduate loan system.

 

  The government has spent RM40 billion under the PTPTN, and RM4 billion is needed each year to sustain the programme.

 

  UTM vice-chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Zaini Ujang said 150 undergraduates who excelled in their studies would receive assistance from the university's endowment fund this year.   

 

Each of them will receive RM12,000 a year.

 

  "The students will continue to receive the financial assistance if they maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.75 each semester."