Waking Up With Tomorrow’s Mind

Bismillahir rahmaanir rahiim
Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakaatuh, a very Good Morning and Salam 1Malaysia

Y. Bhg. Tan Sri Abu Bakar bin Haji Abdullah, Ketua Pengarah Perkhidmatan Awam Malaysia

Y. Bhg. Tan Sri Abdul Halim bin Ali
Pengerusi, Multimedia Development Corporation, MDeC

Y. Bhg. Dato’ Mohamad Zabidi bin Zainal, Ketua Pengarah MAMPU

Y. Bhg. Datuk Badlisham Ghazali
Ketua Pegawai Eksekutif, MDeC

Y. Brs. Dr. Aminuddin Hassim
Pengarah INTAN

Ketua Setiausaha Kementerian

Ketua Jabatan

Y. Bhg. Tan Sri, Dato’ Sri, Datuk, Dato’, Tuan-tuan dan Puan-Puan

Hadirin yang dihormati sekalian.

Marilah kita memanjatkan kesyukutan ke hadrat Allah SWT, atas limpah dan izin Nya jua kita dapat bersama-sama pada pagi ini, sempena Majlis Perasmian Persidangan ICT Kebangsaan 2011, atau NICT 2011.
Ladies and Gentlemen,

TOMORROW’S MIND

The name Leonardo Da Vinci would swiftly have us visualise the masterpiece oil paintings of Mona Lisa and The Last Supper amongst others. But Da Vinci’s legacy was more than Mona Lisa. He spent more time sketching engineering inventions than he did painting. The Houston Museum of Natural Science exhibition assembled 50 models of his engineering drawings which would include full-size reproductions of a hang glider, a parachute and a 7-foot-long catapult. He thought of these inventions before there were materials available to build them, never mind the minds that would herald them to reality.

2. He thought of helicopters and armour tanks centuries before the world had the means of making it real. His mind broke a science fiction plateau which took him to an altitude beyond his years. Da Vinci would dissect human and animal bodies to understand how the muscles and bones shaped the skin. He went into the countryside and studied the features of plants and the geology of rocks. These fine details later emerged in some of his most famous paintings. He even drew his paintings based on engineering principles.

3. And so what has this got to do with this ICT Conference? What has it got to do with Google, Facebook, Wikis, Twitter or Youtube which one would customarily relate to a Forum of this nature? Da Vinci woke up with tomorrow in his head. It made him great as a result. He created many “Rembrandts” consequently.
4. Allow me to take this opportunity to thank you for inviting me here today. I would also like to thank INTAN, MAMPU and MDeC for organising this Forum the last 3 years. I would like to bid welcome to all our external and overseas speakers here today.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

ASK ROLE NOT USE OF TECHNOLOGY

5. Today, five-year olds can work a Facebook. Eighty-year olds have succumbed to the seduction of Twitter, Google, Youtube, Wikis, Facebook, Flickr and the many more cousins of social network, and cloud computing are no longer a phenomenon nor are they avant-garde to the rural folks in India or Ethopia. Most know of it, even if they may not have access to it. As hand phones are a given accessory to most, the expansion of technology platforms and social network is a given for these times.

6. The provocation today is not about what social media and/or technology platform to use, rather what the roles of these mediums will be in the next leap of national and global growth? What is the role of technology in foreign policies and free trade agreements? How can technology strengthen security in a world where that very technology abets terrorism and global crime? Where does technology stack in sustaining economies, in optimising energy consumptions and in managing carbon footprints? Can technology balance sound institutional building and protect individual interests at the same time? And how do we place technology in innovation?

7. The history of the world has always seen a leading civilisation carve the benchmarks of progress and human growth. From the Byzantines to the Romans, the Ottoman to the Greek Empires, and from the British to the United States of America. Each of these civilisations led and carved the footprints to human growth and success for their times. The rest followed. And so here we are in 2011. Much has been said, not least written, on who leads the world today. Are we living the Asian Century with the evident rise of Chinese and Indian consumption abilities? Is it the moment for the fast growing population nations of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) economies? Has America lost its leadership abilities in this new order? Or will Europe ever gain the glory of industrialisation? So whose turn is it to say grace at the dinner table today?

RISE OF ALL BAR NONE

8. Permit me to use the example Fareed Zakaria, the CNN Anchor of Global Positioning Square, used in his book “The Post American World”. He wrote – thirty years ago Americans made up half the draw of the 128 players selected in the U.S Tennis Open. In 1982 for example 78 of the 128 players selected were Americans. In 2007, only 20 Americans made the draw. Millions of pixels have been devoted to wondering how America could have slipped so far and fast in just 25 years. But the answer would lie in another set of numbers. In 1970s only 25 countries sent players to the U.S Open. Today about 35 countries do – a 40 percent increase. Countries like Russia, China, South Korea, Serbia and Austria churn out world class tennis players with Germany, France and Spain training many more players than they ever did before.

9. In 1970s America, Britain and Austria dominated Tennis Opens. Today the final sixteen can easily come from 10 different countries. In other words it is not that United States has declined in the last two decades, but rather everyone else have learnt the game and are playing it as well, if not better. This hypothesis can be extrapolated into many other examples. The British introduced football to the world, as they did badminton. Today, the Brits are struggling to keep pace in quarter finals in a World Cup match and can easily lose to a Spanish team (Barcelona) in the English League. Equally, a Malaysian team is able to win an All England Championship in badminton. Have the Brits forgotten how to play good football and badminton or has the world simply learnt the game just as well?

10. Take the competitiveness rankings by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as another example. In year 2001 and 2002, WEF ranked 58 countries. Today they rank over 130 countries. In less than a decade the participants to competiveness have tripled simply by numbers, never mind their core abilities by way of capital, talent and technology. Another illustration would be the 24-7 media networks. The world was once governed and ruled by CNN. They set the tone to a 24-7 media reporting. If it’s not on CNN it is not news they said. Today we have BBC, AlJazeera of Qatar, CCTV of China, Prezz TV from Iran, NDTV from India, Bloomberg, CNBC and the list goes on.

WHAT IS MODERNISATION?

11. And so we ask – – who does this Century belong to? This Century belongs to ALL. Modernisation is no longer synonymous with westernisation. When Britain led the world, we read literature, heard of Shakespeare, spoke English, drank tea with scones, crazed cricket and were taught government bureaucracies. After World War II and with the rise of USA as the leading global power, we saw modernisation associated with Mc Donalds, wearing jeans, direct talking, drinking Coca Cola and listening to rock music.

12. The dynamics of modernisation today wears a different coat. Some say it is like a Bollywood movie. Shot in Western capitals, but with the Asian emotions and family drama. Today you could easily mistake Japanese and South Korean songs to Bon Jovi, Aerosmith and Def Leppard beats. Middle Eastern songs have Indian choruses. This is never before done, never mind heard. Jazz which originated in African American community is today composed and sung not only in Italy but also in Malaysia.

13. And so I dare say that MODERNISATION is imprinted by a patchwork of many and all who make today’s reality. It will be defined by those who make progress worthy and sustainable. It will be spoken by a language understood in Cairo through to the rurals of Ethiopia across New York and KL. Simply put, MODERNISATION will have a dime placed from all parts of the world. It will no longer be owned and associated with confined Western civilisations.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

THE NEW FACE OF ADVERSARY

14. A world defined by ALL brings with it challenges and problems that would belong to EVERYONE. In the 18th, 19th or 20th Centuries wars were simply that – – wars. Armour tanks, boots on the ground, fighter jets and navy vessels. International crime is usually flanked by tangible crime scenes. But today’s world order carries no flag bearers to crime and terrorism. Just as Facebook, Twitter, Flicker has given us such leaps of progress and connectivity, it has also been used as a platform to innovate perils and menace globally.

15. We no longer need to house our servers in huge buildings of central command centres. Today’s command centre doesn’t need palpability. Your local Starbucks can be your command centre. My Space and Yahoo can be your post-box and courier service. Google and Bing can be your intelligent tool box. Wikipedia can be your fact check pad. So in short – – welcome to the new world of technology “Tescos” and “Walmart”. Just walk through the front door and you will get all you need for the family and the pet!

16. The brutal reality of this development is that we cannot shut down this new world order. This new order demands of us a new approach. It seeks an approach able to respond to a world where power of sovereign nations is far more diffused than ever before. This new order serves us a world where everyone can feel empowered. It is here where you and I as practitioners in this global market must decipher the role of technology.

MALAYSIA’S REALITY

17. Herein lies our very own challenges and opportunities in Malaysia. ICT has been earmarked as one of the 12 National Key Economic Areas (NKEA) of the Economic Transformation Programme. With 62 percent of Entry Point Projects (or EPPs) under the national Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) reliant on the robustness of our ICT plan, it simply is incumbent upon us to sensibly define and implement that which will have meaningful growth impact for Malaysia locally, regionally and globally. So what is meaningful and what is growth here?

18. In his writing Fareed Zakaria highlights the following “The United States has the most powerful military in the history of the world. And yet it has found it difficult to prevail in Iraq. The Israeli military is vastly superior to Hezbollah’s forces in Lebanon. But it was not able to win a decisive victory over the latter in its conflict with it. Why? Because the current era is one in which asymmetrical responses have become easier to execute and difficult to defeat”. He adds that this is true not only in wars but also in global crime and terrorism, drug cartels, money laundering syndicates and migrant workers. In a borderless global activity, small groups of people with ingenuity, passion and agility will have advantage over walls of institution and bureaucracy.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

THE MISSED MEANINGFUL DELIVERY

19. Historian Philip Huang wrote about farmers in Yangtze Delta and Britain, both the richest regions in China and Europe respectively in the 1800. The two areas, he points out might have seen equal measure of economic strength if cultivated on the same principles of growth and productivity. The Chinese were able to make their land highly productive by assigning more and more people to work on a given acre. Huang calls this “output without development”. The English kept searching for ways to improve their productivity in order that each farmer would produce more crops. Ultimate result was that a small number of British farmers were able to farm huge lands. By the 18th Century the average farm size in England was 150 acres; in Yangtze Delta it was about 1 acre.

20. I highlight these examples to put it to you that high income environment is not attainable if we continue to throw unlimited resources to achieving undefined results. Results emanate from ingenuity, agility and nimbleness of the mind. It does not in numbers and excesses! Inflation breeds where remuneration increases without production. Inefficiency grows in the beds of inefficient utilisation of resources. High income cannot prosper where there is no ingenuity, development, productivity and agility. We cannot command high income if we are not able to wake up with tomorrow’s minds! We cannot demand high income if we bring yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems.

21. I recognise that we have implemented many E-Government applications nationwide over the years. With some 1,247 online services now available through the myGovernment portal, I dare say we need to take a step back from our achievements and reflect if every one of these services is still relevant. Just because it is E-something it doesn’t make it relevant for all times. We can ask the in-your-face questions like “Do we need this service at all?” or “Can we reduce the 10 steps to just one or none?”

22. Similarly, as we move into the third wave of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) implementation, since its establishment in 1996, MSC Malaysia must soul search to ascertain its achievements. MSC has many reasons to be proud of its achievements, including its creation of 111,367 jobs up to 2010. But we need to ask ourselves if the companies and services registered thus far will catapult Malaysia to compete in a world of 7 billion people. Our ring of competition is no longer confined to the 28 million population here.

23. Every job, every service, every idea, not least every capital is today seen in the relevance of the larger globalised world. And so the businesses we build and the services we offer must compete on these platforms for Malaysia to remain competitive in the global arena.
Ladies and Gentlemen,

SMALL ADJUSTMENT, BIG GAINS

24. In a world that is increasingly unruly and audacious, where everyone is rising and we face enormous economic challenges, rising global competition, what we deliver must be meaningful. Meaningful outcomes emerge when our minds are not impervious to realities of the day. It emanates when we wake up with tomorrow’s mind and deliver for it today. Meaningful outcome gushes in delivery when we recognise the quantum of results is not directly proportionate to the quantity of hard resources invested.

25. Permit me to leave you with the story of Play Doh. Yes Play Doh! We have all heard if not played Play Doh with our children and grandchildren. Here is the history of Play Doh. It was originally created as wallpaper cleaner and came in one colour….white. In the 1950s Joseph and Noah McVicker, began testing the product in schools by introducing new colours, and a hugely successful product launch ensued. The brothers became millionaires and Play Doh remains a great tool for children’s education today, some 50 years on.

26. Think about this. What if Play Doh had been confined to being only white? Would the McVicker brothers have become millionaires? This gain didn’t require huge technological ground breaking investment. It didn’t require fanfare and spectre. It just needed a small mental adjustment. It needed someone to wake up one morning with tomorrow in his mind. What will this mean to someone tomorrow?

27. Every service, every technology and every great delivery is one small adjustment from greatness. In Play Doh that adjustment was adding more colours. Just like the Play Doh, we have the opportunity of remoulding our service deliveries to greatness with sometimes a small adjustment. Often that adjustment lies in us opening our minds to seeing tomorrow today! Knowing that to touch lives we are here to serve, it sometimes takes a small adjustment in how we see life itself.

28. I hope your deliberations in this Forum will result in meaningful change for the people of Malaysia. On that note and with Bismillaahir rahmaanir rahim, I am pleased to officially open the 2011 National ICT Conference.

Wabillahittaufiq walhidayah,
Wassalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.