Beyond coding, it starts with using digital tools to solve everyday problems
When Budget 2027 was tabled last month, one goal stood out: building 200,000 skilled artificial intelligence (AI) workers for Malaysia.
To achieve this, free AI subscriptions for young people, support for small businesses to adopt AI, and AI-powered classrooms being rolled out in stages across our schools, were announced. The message is clear. AI is no longer reserved for tech companies and computer science graduates.
But here lies a quiet challenge. Many of us think, “I’m not a techy person so AI is not for me.” When we hear “AI developer”, we picture someone hunched over a screen full of code.
Today, anyone who can describe a problem clearly can build an AI tool to solve it. The raw material is no longer code. It is your everyday frustration, plus a little creativity. As the adage goes, necessity is the mother of invention.
What bugs you
Every great tool begins with a small annoyance. A hawker who keeps losing track of stock. A mother juggling her children’s tuition schedules. A teacher marking the same mistakes on 50 worksheets. Each of them understands their problem far better than any software engineer ever could.
Indeed, our national pool of AI talent will not come only from labs and lecture halls; it will also come from ordinary Malaysians who know their problems best because the person who feels the pain most is often the person best placed to design the cure.
Try this for one week: keep a “frustration diary”. Every time a task feels repetitive, slow or confusing, write it down in one line. By Sunday, you will have a list of problems waiting to be solved. Circle the ones that keep coming back. Every headache may be hiding an invention.
Describe, don’t code
Here is the good news: you no longer need to speak Python to talk to a computer. Today’s AI tools understand plain English, Bahasa Malaysia and Mandarin. If you can explain your problem to a friend over teh tarik, you can explain it to AI.
Pick one problem from your diary and describe it clearly: who will use it, what goes in, and what should come out. Ask AI to build a simple stock tracker, a WhatsApp reply template for your shop, or a revision quiz for your child. If the first version is not quite right, tell AI what to change, and try again.
Think of AI as an eager intern: fast and hardworking, but in need of clear instructions. If you are young, the government’s free AI subscriptions are a perfect place to start. If you are older, ask a younger family member to sit beside you for your first try.
Your first prototype may be clumsy, and that is perfectly fine. Rome was not built in a day, and neither is a good tool.
Improving together
A tool that helps one person is good. A tool that helps a whole community is even better. Once your first version works, show it to family, friends or colleagues. Their feedback will make it better.
Malaysia is a nation of small businesses and close-knit communities. A hawker’s stock tracker could serve the whole food court, while a teacher’s quiz generator could benefit an entire school.
Teachers can play a vital role here. Instead of banning AI, let students pick a real problem in their school canteen or neighbourhood, then build and present a solution as a group.
This is how each of us can support the national AI push: by becoming not just users of AI apps, but also problem solvers who build and share. The real challenge is making sure no one is left behind, whether in rural schools, small family businesses or older generations.
The government has set the direction with funding, classrooms and free subscriptions. But the most important ingredient cannot be bought with any budget: our willingness to look at a problem and say, “I can fix this.” That is how every one of us plays a part in Malaysia’s AI aspiration.
So the next time something frustrates you, don’t just complain about it. Write it down, describe it to AI, and share what you build. Whether you are a student, parent, hawker or retiree, you have what it takes to be an AI developer.
Dr Lau Chee Yong is an assistant professor and programme leader for computer engineering at the School of Engineering, as well as the lead of the Visionary AI Studio at the Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation (APU). His professional credentials include a PhD in Bioelectronic Engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer in the United Kingdom, a Professional Engineer in Malaysia, an Asean Chartered Professional Engineer, a European Engineer, an International Professional Engineer, and a Malaysian Registered Technology Expert. He serves on the committee of the Electronic Engineering Technology Division at the Institution of Engineers Malaysia. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
