KUCHING: UNIMAS can help the State government to transform the State’s economy into a modern economy and be connected with the world, said Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi (Dr) Abang Johari Tun Openg. “We hope that our economic development will be based on data, especially big data and this big data will become the basis for us to do our R&D and at the same time to add value to whatever resources that we have in Sarawak.
“Once that is put in place, there are many other supportive services that we need including cybersecurity which is also very important and at the same time, the use of technology to embrace the process of production and that will transform the way we develop ourselves,” said Abang Johari during the launching of the 11th Malaysian Software Engineering Conference (MySEC2018) at The Waterfront Hotel here yesterday.
He added that when he took office as Chief Minister, his first step was to transform the economy towards a digital economy. “The reason is simple, we have a small population of 2.7 million and we have the resources but we have to connect these resources with the market,” he said.
According to Abang Johari, the anchor sectors of the Sarawak Digital Economy include Agriculture, Manufacturing – Industry 4.0, Tourism, Smart City, Digital Health, e-Commerce and Digital Government. He said that to ensure a continuous development of Sarawak Digital Economy, the State government has set up the Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) to monitor the development of IT and the development of Industry 4.0 in order for the State to move forward.
He added that the State government has allocated RM1 billion to upgrade the Internet speed and connectivity in the rural areas. The conference is co-organised by UNIMAS’ Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology (FCSIT) and Malaysian Software Engineering Interest Group (MySEIG).
Vice Chancellor of UNIMAS, Prof Datuk Dr Mohamad Kadim Suaidi said that the theme for this year’s conference was ‘Transforming Society through Sustainable Digital Economy’ which points to the current focus in the science of IT. He added that the conference was a venue for academics, researchers and industries to present recent findings and development related to Software Engineering and ICT across the field of sciences, engineering, arts and humanities.
“We believe that the sharing by the speakers and presenters will give a deeper insight into the influence of software engineering as a discipline to share the Sarawak Digital Economy Strategy 2018-2022,” he said adding that as part of the UNIMAS Digital Economy initiative, a collaboration between UNIMAS’ FCSIT and The Value Engineers (TVE) from The Netherlands, has embarked on sustainable business models for any new technology under the Sarawak Digital Economy initiative.
He added that through the collaboration, TVE would work with UNIMAS to address the discrepancies between technical issues of software development as well as the necessity to address consumer demand and build sustainable business models for software companies and government digital economy projects.
“In order to stay relevant to the needs of the industry, UNIMAS’ FCSIT is actively collaborating with several industry players, such as SAINS and SACOFA, to ensure that the curriculum offered at the university will be progressively aligned with the needs of the industry,” he said adding that due to these efforts, the graduate employability for graduates of the Computer Science and IT in UNIMAS has been recorded at 87 per cent in 2017.
“This is proof that our students are taught and trained sufficiently to fit the industry’s needs. “I am convinced that UNIMAS will continue to play an important role in strenthening education and research in ICT and Sarawak Digital Economy for many years to come not only for the State of Sarawak, but Malaysia as well,” he added. Also present was the Chairman of UNIMAS’ Board of Directors, Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima Sulong Matjeraie.
The two-day multi-track conference has attracted more than 100 technical papers which brings together topics such as Software Process and Measurement, Software Approach, Application for Priority Sectors and Software Tools and Environment.
The conference consists of multiple parallel presentation sessions as well as keynote addresses and invited speakers sessions by local and international experts in the field of Software Engineering, namely Prof Dr Ali Selamat from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Associate Prof Dr Sim Yee Wai from University of Technology Sarawak (UCTS), Prof Dr Shamsul Sahibuddin from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Ahmad Nazri Mohd Jamil from IBM Malaysia Sdn Bhd, and Associate Prof Jaap Gordijn from VU Amsterdam.
