Malaysia ready for science and innovation action in development

Malaysia has been actively deliberating with global science and innovation leaders for five years in positioning science and innovation as the game changer in becoming a sustainably developed nation and is now ready for action.

Executive Vice President of New York Academy of Science TC Westcott (NYAS) as the joint-secretariat for the Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council (GSIAC) together with Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) which has been a great conduit of world’s top most expertise on the matter, said Malaysia is indeed ready for science to action implementations.

“One of the things that is important about what we do at the academy and I believe is transferred to our work in the GSIAC is we look for action. We don’t want to just put people together, have them in a room, speaking and talking. What we want to do is we want to motivate action based on those conversations. That is an incredibly important element of what NYAS does and an important element of what the GSIAC does. The goal was to take science and use science to advance the agenda in Malaysia, to advance Malaysia and to advance the Malaysian people. We believe that the GSIAC has successfully accomplished that.”

Westcott speaking to Astro AWANI after hosting the GSIAC 5th Meeting preparatory committee coordination discussion at NYAS office on Friday, added that GSIAC has really achieved its objective of putting together top experts in science and innovation from around the world from both the public and private sectors for input into sustainable development.

“GSIAC has already made strides in the action area. The question now is, how do we take that and push it forward. How do you ensure that there’s an ecosystem for innovation. Innovation doesn’t just happen.”

Education would be one of the key areas where execution of innovation and science must be the game changing principle as not only formal education system has to improve but also the informal education arena like early childhood education, added Westcott.

“There are organisations in Malaysia today who have already made commitments for early childhood development and have indicated their desire to advance that agenda. But here’s the rub. If we do not address this issue now. If we do not provide the right environment for the first thousand days and then we do not provide the right development of the child after that then we are not going to have the citizens of the world that are going to be able to solve the yet to be discovered problems Technology and science is how we find solutions. That is what innovation is all about and if we have not trained the next generation we are not going to have those innovators.”

The 5th GSIAC annual meeting takes place September 28 in New York with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Razak as chair.

The key focus of the high level half-day meet -- bringing together about 50 global subject matter experts, government officials and corporate leaders at Marriott East Side Hotel -- will be the discussions on the GSIAC assessment report, the implementation of science and innovation in the 11th Malaysia Plan and the OECD reviews of Malaysian innovation policy.