This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 26, 2021 - May 2, 2021

Attention foodies, shutterbugs and Wikipedia users of Malaysia! A group of Malaysian Wikipedia administrators has launched a photography competition to capture and curate all the delicious delights that the country has to offer. The competition runs from April 1 to June 7 and is open to all Malaysian citizens, regardless of age. 

Bust out your most impressive smartphone camera, or the most retro film camera you can find, and get to snapping pictures of your favourite Malaysian classics. Simply upload the pictures to Wikipedia Commons and fill up the relevant online application form. 

More details can be found at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki Commons:WikiSelera

The Selangor government has introduced the Selangor SME Digitalisation Matching Grant worth RM5 million to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) digitalise their businesses in the face of Covid-19 challenges.

The state government has allocated a 50% matching grant or a maximum amount of RM5,000 to each SME to subscribe to the chosen digital service providers. This initiative is expected to benefit at least 1,000 SMEs in Selangor.

Meanwhile, Selangor executive councillor for industry and trade Datuk Teng Chang Khim says there is ample room to expand the digital economy with rapid digitalisation following the Covid-19 pandemic. The state government will also allocate RM2 million in the form of subsidy vouchers to achieve a gross merchandise value of RM700 million at the upcoming Selangor E-Bazar Raya 2021 Campaign to be held from April 15 to May 29.

Applications for the grant will open at 12pm on April 15 and close at 12pm on May 15. So far, 100 digital service providers have been approved for this campaign.

Selangor-based SMEs can apply to five digitalisation areas offered — e-commerce, human resources and payroll systems, cloud accounting, digital marketing, electronic point of sales (E-PoS) and payment gateways.

SMEs that wish to apply for the grant must be at least 51% owned by Malaysians, have been in operation for at least a year and have an annual turnover of between RM300,000 and RM1 million.

Each company can only apply once but in that its application, it can apply for up to three digital services with one or more of the service providers endorsed by the Selangor Information Technology & Digital Economy Corporation (Sidec), a subsidiary of Invest Selangor.

For more information, visit www.sidec.com.my/selangorgrant2021.

Futurise Sdn Bhd is partnering with the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) to introduce the latter’s Malaysian Collaborative Network for Innovation (i-Connect) programme to help build a conducive innovation ecosystem in the country. 

The i-Connect programme creates a new path for innovation in four key strategic areas — Industry 4.0 in manufacturing, fintech in Islamic finance, health and wellness, and the halal supply chain. The programme is an industry-led collaborative network that involves the quadruple helix framework of university-industry-government-civil society interactions within a knowledge economy.

Futurise will ensure that its proprietary open innovation platform FUTURITY is deployed for the i-Connect programme and records suitable innovations within the programme for matching against solutions well as channelling into the National Regulatory Sandbox programme it manages. 

ASM will provide all the necessary advice and knowledge on the i-Connect programme features, including programme engagement, project evaluation and other specific activities for the different phases of bringing innovation to the commercialisation stage. 

Online education platform EduKaji.my has launched SPM Accelerate, a five-month online intensive revision class that covers the newly introduced Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Menengah (KSSM) syllabus for Form 5 students taking the examination this year and even Form 4 students who wish to get ahead.

EduKaji is a spinoff brand of Uni Enrol Malaysia, the largest student enrolment platform in Malaysia. The company points out in a press release that this is the first year the KSSM, which takes over from the long-standing Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah (KBSM), will be used for the SPM, and although the change is generally positive, it comes at a challenging time.

Uni Enrol co-founder Rickson Khaw tells Digital Edge that EduKaji focuses on providing affordable education programmes, especially for the SPM this year, for students across Malaysia. “We launched EduKaji to empower students in their studies and hence their SPM results. When they are able to do well in SPM, Uni Enrol’s services to match them with scholarships will have a greater impact as well.”

In a press release, Uni Enrol co-founder Cheah Ken Hoong says, “We believe there are many students who want to join tuition classes, but private supplementary classes are not necessarily affordable for many families, especially during this challenging time. 

“Being online, students from any state can join and get access to the best teachers who may not be based near them. Our prices are 70% to 80% lower than what most parents are paying for private education. We do what we can to make some difference for the students.”

The class, which starts on May 31, is aimed at helping the vast majority of students who are feeling anxious and underprepared to face the new SPM examinations this year. The SPM Accelerate programme will cover the entire Form Four and Form Five KSSM syllabus.

Students can join classes for up to six subjects: Bahasa Melayu, Sejarah, Additional Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Prices start from RM16 per subject per month. 

Those who are interested can get more information at edukaji.my.

Red Hat Inc, a leading provider of open source solutions, has appointed Marjet Andriesse as vice-president and general manager of Asia-Pacific. She succeeds Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, who has been promoted to senior vice-president and general manager of North America commercial sales. Both will be reporting to executive vice-president of global sales and services Larry Stack.

Andriesse has over 25 years of broad industry experience leading teams in global and regional roles at organisations across Europe and Asia and has established herself as a respected and experienced sales leader since joining Red Hat last year. In her new role, Andriesse will be instrumental in driving the next phase of growth for Red Hat in Asia-Pacific and leading initiatives to enable customer success with open hybrid cloud technology.

Since van Leeuwen joined the company in 2004, Red Hat’s customer base in the region has grown significantly. He helped establish the company as the open hybrid cloud technology leader. In his new role, he will build on this experience, further driving digital transformation as leader of Red Hat’s commercial business in North America. He plans to relocate from Singapore to North America in the coming months.

Last week, Google Earth published its first big update since 2017, featuring a new time-lapse feature from satellite imagery that shows how the planet has changed in the past 37 years. Users can look at videos on forest change, urban growth, warming temperatures and “Earth’s fragile beauty”. For instance, this photo shows how the Columbia glacier has retreated more than 20km over the years, making it one of the fastest-changing glaciers on the planet. Rising global temperatures is one of the factors.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots offers a vision for how robots can survive in the real world and how they will change our relationship with technology. From teaching them manners to robot-proofing public spaces to planning for their mistakes, this book answers every question you did not know you needed to ask about the robots that are on the way.

Most robots, to date, have been mere tools, performing simple tasks with significant human oversight. However, the next generation of robots will be truly social, operating on their own in our complex world. Indeed, robots are already wandering the aisles in grocery stores, managing emergency rooms, making deliveries and zipping through warehouses.

Whether they do these things well, argue robot designers Laura Major and Julie Shah, will depend on whether we have built them to know how to behave as social entities. That will require collective effort to ensure that the new intelligent robots are harnessed to the task of enhancing human well-being. — Amazon

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