Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

“We will amass in the next one year, the equivalent of all data combined over the last 100 years ” quipped Richard Jones, VP Sales Asia, Automation Anywhere, Singapore. He said this as he welcomed delegates as Chairperson to the Big Data Analytics Conference held in KL on the 8^th and 9^th of Nov, organised by Zenith Bizness Excellence.

The event saw 16 speakers and panellists from various industries addressing the many concerns faced by IT personnel in adopting Big Data Analytics into each of their organisations and market segments.

Kicking off the conference with a keynote address, was Dr Karl of Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) assuring delegates that the government is in full support of the Digital Transformation age and are one of the leading ASEAN countries in being a catalyst and to drive innovation towards Big Data.

“Our approach is to engage with the public and provide the ‘dance floor’ where relevant parties can join in, exchange ideas and know-how as well as to create a sustainable ecosystem”, he said. “Big Data is an enabler for organisations to help move into the coming Digital Economy of 2017”.

In line with these initiatives, MDEC will be providing the ‘sand-box’ setting where companies or individuals may use as a one-stop hub to get anything and everything related to Big Data Analytics.

The hub wich will be known as the Asean Data Analytics eXchange (ADAX) hub, will be set up in Bangsar South and expected to launch by December this year, providing not only the technical showcase of what Big Data is capable of, but also for start-ups to get advice from the 11 data scientists stationed there and look for solutions to their needs in running or setting up their business. The bonus feature of the ADAX is that there will be no charge for the services provided there.

MDEC is also busy promoting and supporting various hackathons such as the recently completed 48 Hour Hackathon for Open Data, The Big App Challenge 3.0 and many more across the nation to further increase awareness and create an interest in the public about BDA.

They are also working on educating students in the many uses of Big Data. The recently launched #mydigitalmaker by MDEC together with the Ministry of Education (MoE), is to get to the grassroots of society in on the mind set and invoke students from standard 1, form 1 and form 4 to adopt Computational Thinking computer science by integrating code  into their syllabus in all subjects beginning January 2017.

They are also on track to produce 1,500 Data Scientists by the year 2020 through educating not only students but also working professionals who are interested in the world of Big Data. To do this, they have roped in the Harvard School of Business as well as the Center for Applied Data Science (CADS) to assist in meeting the talent requirements which are currently not up to the mark.

Though large MNC’s and start-ups are able to cope with Big Data requirements to move forward, the pace at which the industry will grow, especially with the onset of the Internet of Things flooding the market, it will out-pace the current supply-demand chain for Data Scientists sooner than those who are being groomed for the job. Perhaps there should be more initiatives to address the talent issue in terms of short term remedies before the younger generation is capable and able.

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