Week in Review: The IoT roadmap and a connected future

By Karamjit Singh July 10, 2015

Malaysia joins Singapore whose own IoT push is embedded in its Smart Nation drive
Local entrepreneurs must be active participants

Week in Review: The IoT roadmap and a connected future I WAS just speaking to the Asean head of a global consulting company this morning and we concurred that it feels like two years is now the new mid-term for corporate planning, and not the typical three-year yardstick.

And really, it has been technology and its adoption that have been the key drive to this acceleration of time that we are all experiencing and living through, whether we like it or not.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is going to make technology even more pervasive than we can imagine now, so it is only timely that Malaysia has now introduced its National IoT Strategic Roadmap.

One part of me feels that it is late. For instance, it has taken 14 months after national research and development centre Mimos Bhd held an IoT technical working group workshop, which kicked off the development of the blueprint.

Singapore already had IoT as one of the key pillars in its 2012 Infocomm Technology Roadmap which was developed by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA).

Since then, the island-republic has folded various pillars of that roadmap into its intelligent Nation 2015 (iN2015) masterplan and its Smart Nation drive.

Timing is one thing, but execution is everything – and in that sense I am much heartened that Mimos, and its chief executive officer Abdul Wahab Abdullah, is the implementation secretariat for this Malaysian roadmap.

Just as Singapore considers its iN2015 a living blueprint, clear acknowledgement at how fast things change, I expect the Malaysian blueprint to be equally flexible in regards to the type of technology to be adapted – but not flexible on the 2020 deadline to measure its impact and the economic results.

And while the established technology vendors are likely to reap many of the benefits from their technologies and platforms being used, I expect that there will be a strong focus on ensuring our technology entrepreneurs can play a meaningful role in delivering and capturing value from Malaysia transitioning to into a ‘smarter’ nation.

If you have been following the many articles we have written on Singapore’s Smart Nation drive, you will know that Singapore is also keenly aware of this.

On a micro level, I am keenly aware of how homes are going to be increasingly automated or ‘sensorised,’ and am insisting that my kids learn how to code and not just in one or two languages. Are you preparing your kids too?

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