KUALA LUMPUR (July 29): The Ministry of Communications and Multimedia (KKMM), via its agency Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC), will be working closely with the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) to partner with more tech companies such as Acestar, AWS, Cisco Academy, Microsoft, Oracle, Quandatics, and SAS Institute to create digitally-skilled faculty experts and graduates.

In a statement, MDEC said as part of its commitment to ensuring industry-relevant curriculum delivery at all MDEC’s Premier Digital Tech Institutions (PDTIs) and Data Partner Universities, MDEC will be working closely with more technology partners to expand its Digital Tech Faculty Expert (DTeX) programme. 

It said the partnership will allow the tech partners to contribute to growth of industry-ready skills required in the workforce that is critical to meet the industry’s current and future demand.

MDEC said the DTeX initiative was started in 2019 and to date it had garnered the support of eight technology companies which had collectively trained 370 lecturers.

It said for this year, DTeX 2020 is in line with MDEC’s objective to create a pool of digital experts among PDTI faculty members for more sustainable and scalable ways to equip tertiary-level students with industry-relevant skills.

MDEC said DTeX 2020 aims to continue strengthening the quality of teaching and learning in PDTIs and Data Partner Universities via the creation of a pool of digital tech subject matter experts among faculty members.

MDEC added that it is now calling for more tech partners to come forward and work together to build a sustainable and quality digital tech talent pipeline, hence accelerating the digital economy forward.

The latest line-up of technology partners will be conducting Train-the-Trainer programmes for PDTI lecturers in a range of in-demand tech solutions and skills, it said.

MDEC vice-president for digital talent development Dr Sumitra Nair said MDEC had a strong focus on creating digitally-skilled Malaysians across the talent life cycle.

“The DTeX 2020 initiative kicked off in May this year with lecturers from 23 institutions of higher learning, inclusive of 16 PDTIs.

“We are targeting a total of 200 lecturers to be trained over the next five months, who will then integrate their skills into their classes at their respective institutions, potentially impacting about 2,000 students. This will help to produce more job-ready graduates,” she said.

Sumitra said the initiative is meant to help Malaysians make that digital leap in the area of Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) jobs, while establishing Malaysia as a designated hub for talent and the best location for businesses to invest and grow. Malaysia must make the digital leap and embrace the concept of living and working in the era of IR 4.0 to drive shared prosperity and reinforce the country's role as the heart of a digital Asean.