KUALA LUMPUR: The Education Ministry has launched the country's educational programme for talented young innovators.
The Digital Innovator Programme (DIP), a collaborative work between Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) together with the Education Ministry, is aimed at developing future innovators through project-based learning (PBL) curriculum which would ensure a consistent development of tech talents to fuel the digital economy.
Equipped with an advanced Digital Maker Space, the DIP is said to be able to harness students' innate creativity to solve real world problems via digital technologies while providing ample PBL opportunities and mentorships to cultivate entrepreneurial skills.
DIP was an expansion of MDEC's Digital Ninja programme where they had successfully nurtured and produced 515 high potential young digital innovators from Form 1 to Form 5 students over the last five years.
"We need to develop a new breed of creative and innovative thinkers who can generate trailblazing ideas and solutions that benefit mankind.
"To this end, I am pleased that the Education Ministry has been working closely with MDEC to encourage our students to become digital producers of technology, instead of mere consumers of technology.
"With the establishment of DIP, I am confident that our country will be able to accelerate the process of producing more innovators who are ready to leverage the ABCD of digital technologies namely Artificial intelligence, Blockchain, Cloud computing and Data science," said Senior Education Minister Senator Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin during the launching ceremony held virtually via Zoom today.
MDEC chief executive officer Mahadhir Aziz said DIP was a crucial initiative to produce digital creators and innovators to realise the goals set forth in the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDIGITAL).
As part of MDEC's continuous push to uplift digital literacy, skills and knowledge, he said the DIP represented an important milestone as it sought to introduce digital technology track into the education curriculum, aligned with the #SayaDigital Movement.
"Having a focused secondary gifted programme, which replicates the key success factors of the Digital Ninja Programme, in addition to the sustained engagement between students, teachers and industry mentors will help to nurture more innovators in the country," he said.
Under the programme, the students will also learn advanced programming and other related skills that touch on Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cybersecurity and Mobile App Development throughout their educational journey at Kolej GENIUS@Pintar Negara, UKM.
UKM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Ts Dr Mohd Ekhwan Toriman said the digital culture would employ futuristic education in teaching and learning methods.
He said it would emphasise on an educational ecosystem equipped with robot and drone creation technology, augmented and virtual reality, and wearables that had propelled UKM to the forefront of global higher education.
"I hope that this collaboration will contribute to the transformation of national education. UKM will support this aspiration by honing quality talents to provide ICT expertise for the country's economic development in the future."
Both MDEC and UKM had signed a memorandum of understanding to formalise the cooperation for the programme.