Opinion by Dinis Guarda
Founder CEO Ztudium and Blockchain Expert
Digital Economy Demands continuity from concept to implementation.
“Here’s to the crazy ones. They push the human race forward. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”- Steve Jobs
A successful National Digital transformation agenda calls for connectivity across all levels of society: government, education, social services, healthcare; as well as economy: banking, payments and commerce.
However, given the evolutionary nature of the development of these services under digital transformation policies and the fragmented nature of control over them, the result is a cacophony of data and systems held together by faith, ritual and hope. We never had the opportunity to take a step back and review the landscape from an objective perspective – if we were to build it again from scratch, we would never do it like this.
Covid has given us the unique opportunity to pause and take stock. Now that we have identified that the biggest barrier to efficiency, transparency and speed of deployment is the lack of interoperability in the systems that mobilizes society, perhaps the first step in our post-Covid-recovery journey should be to build the rails that enable this.
Building the digital fabric that transforms a nation from a physical to a digital economy demands much more than bureaucrats, technocrats and consultants; it demands intelligent design and alignment of objectives; it demands continuity from concept to implementation.
Two years back I had the pleasure of meeting Dr Rais Hussin, then a member of the new ruling government and now Chairman of Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), tasked with ushering in the digital age for the Nation, who had taken upon himself the challenge of designing a blueprint to achieve this goal.
The result of our collaboration was a jointly authored book, 4IR: Reinventing a Nation, which envisaged the digital railway of the future, using the tools of AI, Blockchain, Fintech and other 4IR tech. In it we showcase the architecture that can drive Malaysia’s transformation into an efficient digital economy based on performance, process and logic.
The digital railroad tracks that will drive Malaysia’s transformation into a new Digital Economy are based on the performance of engines built to process transactions accurately and quickly, and designed around reliability of consistent logic that replicates symmetrically across all applications.
The solutions that will drive this type of transformation are typically not off-the-shelf components from the large multinational software, hardware or consulting firms; they are cutting-edge technologies and models developed by innovators and change agents.
If we have learned anything about progress, it is that we have to embrace change, take risks and strive to push the envelope – otherwise we are just standing still.
We now have the opportunity to put these theories to test-in the scheme MDEC have announced as ‘Malaysia 5.0’, loosely modelled on Japan’s Society 5.0 initiative. The term describes the evolution of societal communities around the needs of a human-centred society.
In the shadow of the adversity brought about by Covid-19, we hope the glimmer of innovation will signal the dawn of the digital age in which societies are more efficient, transparent, and inclusive.
Malaysia 5.0 can contribute to a more sustainable and circular economy – not just in Malaysia but elsewhere in the progressive world- where greater well-being is possible for all citizens regardless of age, ethnicity, and class.
(The views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion, beliefs and view point of the owners of asiannewsmakers.com)
