FOR political science graduate Jian Wai, the MyKad in his wallet is more than a form of identification.
“I use it all the time for Touch ’n’ Go payments since I lost my Touch ’n’ Go card in 2018,” he said.
And he also uses it to buy coffee at the vending machine in his office.
“It is really quite convenient,” he said, adding that his mother and a friend also use their MyKad for similar purposes.
While the MyKad is an important part of the Malaysian people’s lives, many may not know that it is a multipurpose smartcard that originated from the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC Malaysia) initiative.
When it began, MSC Malaysia gave a glimpse of how technology would be used in business and government interactions, as well as in the daily lives of the people.
It listed seven flagship applications and one of them was a smartcard that would not only serve as a national identity card but also as an “electronic purse”.
That smartcard is now the MyKad that you carry for identification, and it has a chip containing personal information such as a copy of your fingerprint.
MSC Malaysia was inaugurated in 1996 as a way to accelerate Malaysia’s transformation into a developed nation through information technology.
The corridor’s original physical area stretched from the Petronas Twin Towers in downtown Kuala Lumpur through Putrajaya, Cyberjaya and the KL International Airport in Sepang, Selangor, a 15x50km wedge of land.
Under MSC Malaysia, Putrajaya and Cyberjaya became the two new flagship intelligent cities.
“It was key to fulfilling the objectives in Vision 2020 and leapfrogging the country into the digital age while attracting multinational corporations to Malaysia,” said tech editor M. Madhavan of The Star.
“At the time, it definitely caught the attention of the world,” he said, citing how tech luminaries such as Bill Gates were on the MSC advisory panel.
Besides Gates, the International Advisory Panel included top executives from IT companies such as Netscape president and CEO James Barksdale, Sun Micro-systems chairman Scott McNealy, Apple Computer chairman Dr Gilbert F. Amelio, IBM CEO Louis Gerstner, and Hewlett-Packard chairman Lewis Platt.
To oversee the development of the MSC, the Multimedia Development Corp was formed in 1996.
It has since been renamed the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation.
Another flagship application under MSC was e-government that envisioned a paperless administration and government services that could be conducted electronically.
This can be seen today in online services such as passport renewal applications and the filing of income tax.
During the mid-1990s, to encourage people to embrace IT, the song Cinta IT (Love IT) was often played on the airwaves.
As of last year, 88.7% of Malaysians are Internet users, according to a survey by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.
MSC Malaysia also allowed many creators and innovators to introduce their work to the public.
The focus on creative content produced popular works such as Upin dan Ipin and Boboiboy, which also gained regional fans.
Now, almost 30 years since MSC Malaysia began, the digital economy is still seen as a key economic growth area for the country.
As of 2019, the Statistics Department recorded that the ICT (information and communications technology) sector contributed 19%, or RM289.2bil, to the gross domestic product.
Now, the country has new aspirations under the MyDigital national initiative, which aims to transform Malaysia into a digitally-driven, high-income nation and a regional leader in the digital economy.
The Malaysian Digital Economy Blueprint was put together to achieve these aspirations as it works towards realising goals in the Shared Prosperity Vision 2030.
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