Malaysia Must Produce Many Data Scientists To Be Major Player In IT Development - Minister

KEMAMAN (Terengganu, Malaysia), Oct 14 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has to produce many data scientists to drive its effort to become a data management centre so as to pioneer new economic opportunities on a global scale, Communication and Multimedia Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek said Sunday. He said it was the desire of Prime Minister Najib Razak to see Malaysia not only as a consumer in the information technology sector but also as a major player in IT development. "Education must also be geared towards that direction. Hitherto, we have sent our children to become engineers, chemists and aeronautical engineers. "There has been no plan on a large scale as yet to send our students to become data scientists. We have to do that," he said in an interview with Bernama here. Ahmad Shabery said the major players in the Silicon Valley, San Francisco, in the United States require about 200,000 data scientists and Malaysia also had to seriously produce many data scientists in order to become a global data management centre. Ahmad Shabery said that during the recent visit to the Silicon Valley in San Francisco and when chairing the meeting of the Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council (GSIAC), Najib emphasised the importance of continuous efforts to transform Malaysia into a high-income nation by enhancing its capabilities in science and innovation. He said the work culture in the Silicon Valley encompassed not only 'hardware' but also 'software', that is the cultural aspect of how things can be combined as well as establishing interpersonal relationships with the IT community, investors and the scientific community in America. "All data that we use on Internet, Google, YouTube, GPS, WhatsApp and so on are stored, analysed and have a value of their own," he said, adding that it was this data, known as the 'big data', that was analysed to create new economic opportunities. "I was made to understand that they spend between US$200 billion and US$300 billion on the 'big data' programme; it is similar in the United Kingdom, Australia and other developed countries. "If Malaysia wants to lead and be a major player, then we must prepare this 'big data'," he said. Ahmad Shabery said the data scientists would be able to analyse the data and help meet the needs of the global community in various fields, encompassing education, medicine, social and so on. He said that while accompanying Najib on the Silicon Valley visit, he learned that the success of many entrepreneurs there resulted from their being able to analyse data and apply it in global products and services. "Young people in their 20s have become billionaires, such as the founders of Facebook and Twitter for example, and daily they come up with new ideas from the available data," he said. Malaysia, he said, should see the importance of data scientists in the effort to transform the country in the present era of global development. -- BERNAMA