Making better workers

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KUALA LUMPUR: A project under Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM) has begun in schools and universities to inculcate students with skills which can help them become better workers in future.

The project, which begun three months ago, is part of the agency's National Innovation Strategy (NIS), a plan to promote innovation as a key component in Malaysia's drive towards Vision 2020.

Under the project, the students would be groomed to become critical, analytical, constructive and creative thinkers when they join the workforce.

AIM chief executive officer Datuk Dr Kamal Jit Singh said the NIS also encouraged students to come up with innovative research projects that could be converted into wealth.

It has already engaged with five public universities and two research institutes and has come up with 25 new projects that can be commercialised.

"The NIS will focus on fixing the ecosystem for innovation, like having proper skills in place, provide adequate funding, nurturing upcoming firms and create wealth using non-traditional means like businesses built on intellectual properties.

"We need to do this if Malaysia wants to become an innovative country," said yesterday.

Kamal outlined three main areas to be developed under the strategy, one of which is strengthening the building blocks of innovation.

This include building future skills, nurturing and developing intellectual capital for wealth creation and creating a seamless funding pipeline.

The second area identified is switching on the enablers where digital citizens are engaged through multi-platform technologies, inspiring human capital through 1Malaysia inclusiveness and adopting open innovation.

"The third is shooting for the stars where we want to raise the bar and break the mental ceiling and get the people to outperform themselves."

Kamal said under this area, the NIS would also encourage companies to focus on areas where they have a clear competitive advantage and could compete in the open market without government assistance.

He said while some projects have started off, there were many others the people could participate in and encouraged those who were interested to check the agency's website at http://agensi.innovation.my.