BDA related activity to be more than RM1b by 2020

KUALA LUMPUR: The government expects big data analytics (BDA) related activities in Malaysia to reach more than RM1 billion by 2020 in line with the expansion of science, technology and innovation in the country. 

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Dr Ewon Ebin said the implementation of BDA in the country would be mobilised under the newly-launched BDA Digital Government Lab. 

"With the establishment of this lab, we want to accelerate the implementation of BDA in the public sector towards ensuring efficient service delivery, knowledge generation, wealth creation and societal well-being for national economic growth," he said in his speech at the launch of the BDA Digital Government Lab here today.

Also present was MIMOS Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Abdul Wahab Abdullah, Multimedia Development Corp (MDeC) chief executive officer Datuk Yasmin Mahmood and Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) Deputy Director General (ICT), Dr Suhazimah Dzazali.

Ewon said BDA is crucial for organisations in creating value, enhance efficiency, productivity growth and innovation, in line with tremendous increase of data generation due to digitisation. 

He added that MIMOS is expected to continuously develop local BDA talent to meet the demand in the country's national transformation programmes.

The BDA Digital Government Lab is an initiative from a tripartite memorandum of understanding between MIMOS, MDeC and MAMPU signed in January 2015. 

Ewon said the ministry would work closely with the Communications and Multimedia Ministry to ensure data security and sovereignty. 

Meanwhile, Abdul Wahab said the laboratory, which will host government data, is the platform for the "cross-fertilisation" of data across different agencies and possible integration with social media data, mainly from the public.

He noted that the key towards the successful work on BDA was data scientists. 

Currently, MIMOS has 10 mathematicians and 30 to 40 technology architects working with the organisation, said Abdul Wahab. 

"As for domain experts, we work with the entity that requires us. We put data scientists from three different disciplines to ensure optimum results on what we are going to do," he added. 

He added that a cohesive game plan was needed between MIMOS, MDeC and MAMPU to start the training programmes for data scientists. 

"We will be coming up with a plan, whereby, we will bring in industries and  set up a curriculum to accelerate the BDA data," said Abdul Wahab.-Bernama