WHO’S BEING SERVED?

CLOSING SPEECH BY TAN SRI MOHD SIDEK BIN HASSAN
CHIEF SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT

NATIONAL ICT CONFERENCE 2010

WHO’S BEING SERVED?

Bismillahir rahmaanir rahim

Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakaatuh, Salam Sejahtera dan Salam 1Malaysia.

YBhg. Dato’ 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’ Dr. Nor Aliah Mohd Zahri
Timbalan Ketua Pengarah MAMPU

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

Ketua Setiausaha Kementerian dan Ketua-Ketua Jabatan

Distinguished Speakers

Para hadirin yang dihormati sekalian,

Marilah kita memanjatkan kesyukuran ke hadrat Allah SWT, dengan limpah rahmat dan izin Nya jua kita dapat bersama-sama pada petang ini sempena Majlis Penutup Persidangan ICT Kebangsaan, NICT 2010.

2. It gives me great pleasure to be here this afternoon. I understand you have had a good variety of panel members in all your sessions. I was also informed that you have discussed ways forward, strategies and methods in implementing and measuring innovation.

SERVICE, INNOVATION, SIMPLICITY

3. Given the depth and intensity of technical discourse that must have taken place here in the last 2 days please allow me the next 20 minutes to focus on three uncomplicated determinants of business relevance in public and private sectors. They are – – service, innovation and simplicity.

4. The supreme purpose of a public sector is to ensure you and I, whichever ends of the aisle we may stand in our contribution to society, are able live in dignity with our loved ones. By extension, this would manifest to ensuring provision of the best education and healthcare, well endowed infrastructure with a vibrant economy run in safe and secure environment. So any and all actions, investments and initiatives taken by society must support this lifestyle by deduction. Therein lie the arguments that surround service, innovation and simplicity.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

ACROSS CITIES, SAME SERVICE

5. When the agricultural and industrial revolutions took place in the 17th and 18th Centuries, cities in Europe grew organically from the days of the Roman empires. There was no overt planning in development of cities as we would have now. Cities grew and shaped around the concentration of power. With the emergence of the Silk Route in the East as well as the Industrial Revolution in the West, there were induced migration of people for trade and better living standards from rural to urban areas and also across borders. Cities emerged as a consequence of trade and migration. But the city of London would be different from Paris from Rome and from Berlin for instance in terms of culture, lifestyle and facilities. Culture and traditions of the rule of power dictated its ambiance. Lifestyles were distinctly variable.

6. Fast forward to today – – cut across any urban cities, whether in New York, London, Okinawa or KL – you look for air conditioning on a hot day and heater on a cold, an international airport of course, safe roads, have access to a reliable public transportation and mostly be served the same across these cities and borders. Irrespective of lifestyles and cultures we expect the same facilities, amenities and utilities in any city today.

7. As a citizen of the 21st Century, it would also follow that I would expect the same service levels from a global bank in New York City as I would in its branch in Hanoi because it is the same Bank. This is no different to the hallmark McDonald service we would expect anywhere in the world. So as I expect my quality of service in a Bank in Hanoi to be the same as that in New York or Singapore, I would rationally and naturally expect the same levels of service when I do business with these governments. Herein also lie the heartbreaks. Service levels may, and in most instances will, differ across cities, even if facilities are comparable. Why? Because that service is ultimately provided by human and ONLY assisted by technology and progress.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

PURPOSE OF TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION?

8. When the internet was created in the 1960s, it was done so to allow universities and research facilities to communicate and share data. Email, newsgroups, and file transfers were its primary uses. In 1989, Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, an English computer scientist created the world wide web – or WWW– to enable information to be shared among internationally dispersed teams of researchers at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics near Geneva, Switzerland. What started as a tool for specific use and purpose has today become the medium without which most of us in this room would feel somewhat lost.

9. I make these points to put it to you that INNOVATION in its semantics cannot be sustainable without purpose and substance. Innovation and ICT, Innovation in ICT, is untenable in the lives of general public if it doesn’t deliver meaningful service. This argument is now incontrovertible by the many examples of failures we experience through technologies that don’t serve a purpose. The latest wiz creation on its own may be all we would want in our collection. But would that serve its end to the man who may have travelled 30 miles to admit his son in a University for the first time? Could he have saved that journey and have had a more convenient access to that service? But can that moment and sentiments of seeing your son make University be replaced by ICT and its innovation?

10. As practitioners in our respective fields, the challenge isn’t choosing the next avant garde or vogue. The real challenge is knowing which service has become so cumbersome that it needs to be made simpler by a tool like technology, YET which can never replace that “in the moment” human feeling which needs preserving for all times no matter the technology and innovation.

11. In 1992, the artist Thomas Bayrle wrote, one of the greatest mistakes of modernisation, digitisation and innovation is that we confuse memory to storage space. Memory relates to human experience. It relates to our human moments. It refers to our mortal emotions and feelings. Storage digitises those moments into some filing system. He gave an example of a moment during a New Year’s Eve celebration. This moment is today twittered, then uploaded in a Flickr account and stored in our Facebook. But the emotions of those moments are not carried beyond the storage memory of our digitisation. Every emotion, memory are filed not necessarily reminisced, today.

12. As technology graduates to the next more powerful and speedier sphere, service providers like us must evaluate the full outcome, purpose and need for these enablers. Have we the ability and the resources to expand with the changing demographic needs? Or will our technology remain static as society matures in their demands? When Google was first created in 1995, it was to be a simple search engine. With the emergence of other competing search tools, social media, and You Tube that function and vision needed to change. Users expect more out of it. We expect expandability of this facility. When we do not receive it, we cry a “heartbreak hotel” tune all around!

13. In time if I was Google-ing for weather updates in Malta for say a week’s business travel; essentially what I am asking the search engine is not the weather or the latest temperature but what clothing I need to pack. We move from information to purpose of information. Some would term this change from synthetic to semantic. It is timely that we in the public and private sectors viewed and reviewed technology as a tool to enhancing standards of living in societies, not least a more conversant one. In effect my daughter could be walking down the streets of Surat in India, where she may never have travelled but her mobile phone could automatically update her on the history of the City, significance of a street she may be walking through and which areas to avoid, for her safety. Or as Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google said it won’t be long before you can send a text message to a friend who doesn’t speak your language and this message is automatically translated to his/her language. The ideals of a common lingua franca may no longer be needed in the world of technology communication. You could have associates and friends who may not speak any common language to you and be able to do business with them online.

NEW KIND OF WAR FARE

14. But with pace and speed comes setbacks which needs careful managing. With the speed of growth in ICT and now to such terms as Cloud Computing and social media culture we are faced with increasing cyber attacks and security concerns. The New York Times reported just last week that we no longer need to deploy military with tanks, missiles, battleships and armors for wars now. This is today done by simply sending in a virus to disrupt the entire running of that country. The government will be in disarray, economies disrupted, society affected. All through cyber. Can there truly be balance between integrity of privacy with rapid access to technology? Or has technology redefined the entire meaning of privacy? Can speed, progress and access only come at the price of security and privacy? These are some fundamental questions businesses and governments need to start facing as we invest more and more into digitising service, raising access to information and broadening connectivity of societies and communities.

15. Technology has been a key factor and component in improving the public sector of Malaysia. You will have experienced this at the Road Transport Department to our Immigration Offices to Inland Revenue Board and Registration of Businesses to doing business with local councils, land offices and our police force. But I dare say we still have a lot more work to do in optimal use of technology for optimal service delivery both in our public and private sectors. We may have in some instances “over-teched” ourselves, yet in others we struggle with dire unnecessary bureaucracy. And so I put to us again – – who are we here to serve? What is the outcome our customers expect? What needs to be made simple and how? And what needs to be kept and preserved, if any? Where is the human dimension in all this?

16. As we deliver new technologies and inculcate remarkable innovation we must stop and evaluate its mark and its impact. How does one measure the returns on innovation, the impact of technology? In a service industry this cannot simply be hinged on bottom line. It has to be in customer satisfaction as well, and equally. Profit margins are not a fair measure to innovation if an industry is in an oligarch or monopolistic business environment or one where the competition in the market may not be comparable to first class standards.

LOSE NOT THE KNOWLEDGE IN INFORMATION

17. Information and technology, once seen a luxury for a select few, is now deemed necessary in all societies. Some analysts have gone as far as redefining the whole concept of literacy by infusing IT literacy and access to communications as one of the criteria to defining rate of literacy in communities. To read, write, spell and learn alone is no longer sufficient in a world that is now leashed on mobile devices. Consequently ICT is made one of the National Key Economic Areas in the 10th Malaysia Plan. It is a vital tool to moving Malaysia to developed status by year 2020.

18. But this said ICT alone will not deliver development. It has to be fundamentally founded on human knowledge of what service is all about and how best ICT can be used to enhance our levels of service to a developed nation status. I am pleased that MDeC has identified several areas to help local ICT SMEs in globalising their businesses including funding, deal flows, talent infusion, research and development (R&D) and branding. The Small and Medium Enterprises which has achieved MSC Malaysia-status have contributed to some 28 per cent of revenue generated in MSC Malaysia in 2009. I am also pleased to note that the total number of Intellectual Property registered by MSC Malaysia companies has increased by 28 percent for the year 2009 at 1,752 compared to 1,369 in 2008.

19. I wish to congratulate and thank the National Institute of Public Administration (INTAN), the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) and the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) for organising this conference. I would also like to thank all the distinguished speakers from both the public and private sectors, including those who have traveled from abroad for sharing your knowledge and experience with the conference participants.

Ladies and Gentlemen

20. T. S. Elliot an English poet, playwright, and literary critic, arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century wrote in one of his more renowned poems titled “The Rock”:

• Where is the Life we have lost in living?

• Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

• Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

21. In our quest for progress we need to be mindful that we do not displace the essence of knowledge and wisdom or misplace the human dimension to service delivery. Excellence in any service ultimately lies in delivering to all doors those ordinary human days with extraordinary levels of service delivery. And, I hope we all singularly and collectively, will not fail our stakeholders!

22. On that note, I am pleased to declare the National ICT Conference 2010, officially closed.

Sekian.

Wabillahi taufiq wal hidayah, Wassalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabaratuh.