Former PM Advises People To Selective In Acquiring Knowledge

SHAH ALAM (Malaysia), Jan 7 (Bernama) -- Dr Mahathir Mohamad Saturday advised the youths to be selective in acquiring knowledge so that they would not be exploited in the challenging information age. The former prime minister of Malaysia said the skill lies no longer in acquiring knowledge alone but to find and apply the knowledge in a proper way to achieve success. "Today we have a huge flow of knowledge and information coming to us which could be harmful and confusing sometimes, and if we are not careful in selecting them, we can be influenced. "Propaganda, for instance, is invented so that it can twist knowledge to obtain certain advantage and it is not always good. "As such, people can make wrong decisions if they are not careful enough in choosing the right knowledge," he said when giving a talk at the Knowledge Management Forum themed 'Sharing is Caring, Or is it?' here Saturday. The one-day forum is organised by the Faculty of Business Management of Universiti Teknologi MARA. The objective of the forum, among others, is to seek the views and knowledge of experts in managing knowledge in their organisations. Dr Mahathir said countries like Saudi Arabia were not listed as a developed country although it had rapid gross domestic product (GDP) growth because they were unable to apply the right knowledge to build their own industries and produce things. The per capita income in Saudi Arabia was so huge as it produced 10 million barrels of oil per day for a population of 17 million, compared to Malaysia which only produces 600,000 barrels per day for a population of 28 million, he said. -- BERNAMA