MDEC, UKM, MoE bring Digital Innovator Programme to secondary schools

The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), the Ministry of Education (MoE) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) have announced the establishment of Digital Innovator Programme (DIP), Malaysia’s maiden secondary educational programme for talented young innovators.

In a statement, MDEC said the programme focuses on developing future innovators through project-based learning (PBL) curriculum that ensures a consistent development of tech talents to fuel the digital economy.

It builds on MDEC’s successful Digital Ninja programme, an extra-curricular initiative organised for Form 1 to Form 5 students during the school holidays, and has successfully produced 515 high potential young digital innovators over the last five years, MDEC said.

“DIP is an important initiative that serves the purpose of producing digital creators and innovators to realise the goals set forth in the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDigital),” said Mahadhir Aziz, CEO, MDEC.

“Having a focused secondary gifted programme, which replicates the key success factors of the Digital Ninja Programme, in addition to the sustained engagement between students, teachers and industry mentors will help to nurture more innovators in the country.”

MDEC said as part of MDEC’s continuous push to uplift digital literacy, skills and knowledge, DIP represents an important milestone as it seeks to introduce digital technology track into the education curriculum, aligned with the #SayaDigital Movement.

The #SayaDigital Movement aims to improve Malaysians’ skills to succeed in the digital economy by creating awareness in smart lifestyles, equal opportunities and digital technology to the urban and rural communities, MDEC added.

Equipped with an advanced Digital Maker Space, MDEC claimed DIP will be able to harness students’ innate creativity to solve real world problems via digital technologies while providing ample PBL opportunities and mentorships to cultivate entrepreneurial skills.

It said students will also learn advanced programming and other related skills that touch on data science, artificial intelligence (AI), cyber security and mobile app development throughout their educational journey at Kolej GENIUS@Pintar Negara, UKM.

“DIP is a collaboration between UKM and the industry, namely MDEC, in an effort to strengthen digital culture based on UKM’s five core values.

“It emphasises on an educational ecosystem that is equipped with robot and drone creation technology, augmented and virtual reality, and wearables that have propelled UKM to the forefront of global higher education.

“UKM will support this aspiration by honing quality talents to provide ICT expertise for the country's economic development in the future,” said Mohd Ekhwan Toriman, vice-chancellor of UKM.

Pusat GENIUS@Pintar Negara, UKM is an education institution for gifted and talented local youth aged 12 to 17. Previously, the institution provided a full fundamental Sciences Track for all gifted students.

“MoE has always played an active role in providing a specific, challenging and holistic education system to nurture the gifted and talented students for them to achieve their optimum potential, consequently making them valuable national assets.

“We genuinely believe that the strong collaboration between MoE, UKM and MDEC will further boost the ministry’s goal of developing a highly knowledgeable, skilful and prominent young generation, especially in digital technology,” MoE said in a statement.

To learn more about DIP, kindly visit here.

For application, please complete UKM’s online assessment here.