Expose young generation to robotic knowledge from young - Dr Mahathir

Young generation must be exposed to skills in robot programming from a young age to instill interest, awareness and increase the number of future national robotic experts, said former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

He said awareness among Malaysians in robot programming related skills was high compared to several years ago but Malaysia had yet to reach the level of an advanced country.

"As such Malaysia must have more people who know robots and and how to make programming (robot). Car manufacturing also uses robot which is programmed to create and install a variety of equipment and welding," he said.

Mahathir told reporters this when speaking at the Robot Day 2015 exhibition and workshop at the Malaysia Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) here today.

He said robot programming skills would be very important because in future work that are done manually at the moment would be handled by robots that are programmed to perform a task.

Meanwhile, DreamEDGE Sdn Bhd founder and chief executive officer Khairil Adri Adnan said the one-day programme was inspired from a programme that was implemented in Japan where pre-school children were exposed to science about robotics.