Week in Review: Watch the video on thoughts about next MDEC CEO

By Karamjit Singh January 7, 2019

Question to readers: Should WiR be in video form instead of text?
To truly tackle the Digital Divide in Malaysia, give us meaningful data

IT seemed like every other conversation I had last week inevitably came to the story I wrote on Jan 1^st about Surina Shukri, a Malaysian working in New York city whom DNA has reliably learnt, has been picked to be the new chief executive officer of the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).

And it was not just those in the tech ecosystem who were interested in the news. From members of the international diplomatic service in the various embassies in Kuala Lumpur to Malaysians in finance, telco, healthcare sectors. Such is the interest in MDEC and its next leader.

And actually, as I already shared my thoughts about the new hire (though yet to be officially confirmed!) in my Tech Talk on Friday video with Roshan Thiran, co-founder of Leaderonomics, I’m going to direct you readers to watch that 4-min clip instead.

And, I’d like you to tell me if you prefer that I do my weekly column in video format instead. It was actually in 2013 that the owner of a video studio strongly urged me to do my column in video form as video was going to be the big new wave in online media.

Five years later, I honestly don’t see video news coming anywhere close to matching the amount of content that is still in written form in all serious news portals. And that is simply because video takes more time to get right. It’s about editing, extra manpower, getting the sound and lighting right as well as the quality of the content.

But I’d like to hear your thoughts on this as well.

Moving on to one other interesting story that we ran this past week, my colleague Dzof Azmi wrote a piece on the Digital Divide in Malaysia. The article is one of a series of articles DNA will be running as part of our Telco Deep Dive coverage of some of the interesting stories in Malaysia’s telco scene in 2018.

I think our headline captures the essence of the article best: Digital Divide in Malaysia Leaves Much Work To Be Done

For while the longish article captures the pain points of the digital divide, Malaysia is surprisingly short of some hard data on where exactly are the areas suffering from this digital divide, which I feel should really be renamed as Digital Economic Divide (and feel free to come up with a sharper phrase). Without this hard data, the public and interest groups cannot effectively gauge how effective government and private sector efforts are to address this divide. As they say in management, “What doesn’t get measured, will not get done.”

And really, we cannot afford to have a digital economic divide. Otherwise Malaysia’s transition to a Digital Economy will leave more of our fellow citizens behind, economically. I believe Malaysia cannot and must not allow this to happen.

And in ending, one other thing I cannot allow to happen, is to not alert you to the yearly series DNA does at the beginning of the year – My Fave 5 – which is where DNA writers and our contributing editors share what their favourite five articles of the year were and why.

So please do read the following:

Yunnie Marzuki: My Fave 5 Of 2018

Dzof Azmi: My Fave 5 Of 2018

Chong Jinn Xiung: My Fave 5 Of 2018

Of course, my perennial complain to my editor is, “Only five?” But do enjoy their picks while I struggle to narrow down my own Fave 5 of 2018.

Here’s wishing you a productive week ahead.

Editor’s Picks:

Giving Power To The People', Heats Up Malaysia's P2P Scene

Gobind Picks Malaysian Based In US To Be Next MDEC CEO

It’s All About Working To Fix Ridiculous States Of The World

Telco Deep Dive 2018: Digital Divide In Malaysia Leaves Much More Work To Be Done

PrivyID Banks On Digital Signature