Monday May 3, 2004, SRI KEMBANGAN - Prime Minister Datuk Seri AbdullahAhmad Badawi's announcement that there would be a tighter focus on thenation's research and development activities was applauded by thetechnology industry.

"Our R&D portfolio has to be developed more strategically. Perhaps 70 to80% of our efforts should be focussed on three or four priority technologyareas," Abdullah said in his keynote address at the two-day NationalInnovation Summit here last week.

The summit, attended by over 300 participants, was organised by theScience, Technology and Innovation Ministry to provide a networking andbrainstorming opportunity for members of the government, industry andacademia.

"We should capitalise on our existing areas of strength, for example, inelectrical and electronic manufacturing or in commodities," Abdullah said,adding that another area could be biotechnology.

He said that R&D efforts in semiconductor fabrication, telecommunications,aerospace and photonics had been conducted but the returns were "not veryclear."

Technology industry players greeted the Prime Minister's intentions withoptimism.

"The main message is to develop and nurture innovation forcommercially-viable enterprises and ideas," said Oracle (M) Sdn Bhdmanaging director V.R. Srivatsan.

He said that the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) was a great platform tobe leveraged and taken to the next level.

"Multinational corporations could also could be leveraged upon to developand take products overseas," Srivatsan said, citing as an example Oracleand its local business partner Infopro Sdn Bhd.

Oracle is working with Infopro to take the latter's locally-developed ICBAIntegrated Banking System to markets in the Middle-East, he claimed.

Blogger and e-business consultant Jeff Ooi also greeted the tighter focuswith enthusiasm.

"We should focus on a few niches and expand the depth of our knowledgedomain, rather than taking wild shots at too many things," he told In.Techlast week.

"It would be good to get definitive with Malaysia's advocacy foragriculture and biotechnology, instead of hyping on hot-air idealism.

"One good example is the palm oil industry. Our homebred scientists fromthe Malaysian Palm Oil Board have done good work in this area, and I thinkthey should be given the resources to further advance their R&D," Ooiadded.

Globally competitive

Abdullah quoted the International Institute for Management Development'sWorld Competitiveness report, which ranked Malaysia as 18th in the worldin terms of the number of R&D personnel per capita.

"To raise our ratio to South Korea's, we would need to develop anadditional 60,000 R&D personnel," he said, adding that he looked touniversities and research centres to collaborate with members of theindustry to support this effort.

He warned that Malaysia would face a shortage of 35,000 skilled workers by2005 in areas like ICT (information and communications technology),science and technology, manufacturing, finance and medicine.

"Out of over 5,000 R&D projects in the 6th and 7th Malaysia Plans, only14% were commercially feasible, while only 5% were actuallycommercialised," he said.

Abdullah said that although a number of "seed funds" were available, therewas a lack of "pre-seed funds" to aid researchers in establishing theproofs-of-concept needed to take innovations into the commercialisationstage.

"My government is prepared to create more funding avenues, whether theyare pre-seed, seed or other types of funding. However, researchers andentrepreneurs need to play their part by ensuring that their ideas aremarket-driven," he said.

At a press conference at the summit, Abdullah said the amount for thesefunds would be determined once ideas raised at the two-day summit had beenstudied.

He also announced the establishment of a National Innovation Council (TheStar, April 30), which he would chair, to look into rationalising andstrengthening the national innovation system across all technology areas.

"This council will bring most of the other science and technology-relatedcouncils together to resolve issues and ensure that we can share bestpractices and lessons learnt from the different technology areas," hesaid.

"The National Innovation Council is important because you really need afull-time task force to coordinate and make things happen. I would like tosee people of the right calibre appointed, said Ooi.

HP Sales (M) managing director T.F. Chong also applauded the idea: "WithHP's own tagline being 'Invent,' we share the feeling that the time isripe for an 'overseer' type of council to help Malaysia speed up much ofthe decision-making related to local innovation, particularly thoserelated to adoption of best practices and policy development."

He said that at a time when technology and innovation was transforming thelandscape of the economy more radically than ever before, there was a needfor a "firm guiding hand."