MDeC raises the game for Malaysian businesses with big data week


Tuesday, May 13, 2014 by Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC)

The Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) has launched the "Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur 2014", an initiative that aims to help Malaysia's ICT industry build up its capabilities in Big Data Analytics (BDA), and spur endless opportunities for BDA products and services. With the theme of "Harnessing Value from Your Data Variety", the launch of the seven-day event which took place at the Connexion@Nexus, Bangsar South City, was officiated by Yang Berhormat Datuk Jailani Johari, Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia and witnessed by Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, Chief Executive Officer of MDeC.

As the only city in South East Asia to be given the honour to showcase Big Data Week, Kuala Lumpur is at the centre of one of the most unique global platforms of interconnected community events that focuses on social, political, technological impacts of data. The Big Data Week also brings together a global community of data scientists, data technologies, data visualisers and data businesses from six major commercial, financial, social, and technological sectors.

Speaking at the launch, Yang Berhormat Datuk Jailani Johari, Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, said "Malaysian business and technology landscape have grown to such an extent that we are now ready to embrace the new developments around BDA for businesses, the government, community organisation and much more. For local businesses, there is a need to embrace technologies such as BDA to raise their game so that they can be more competitive and compete on a level playing field with large multinational companies. From the government perspective, BDA can play a huge role in increasing its efficiency and efficacy. With the implementation of the right big data analytics solutions, the government can gain much needed feedback and precious insights that can tremendously improve our decision making process."

"Indeed, BDA is no longer a futuristic abstract concept but is something that is already happening today. According to Gartner, a total of 4.4 million IT jobs will be created globally to support BDA by 2015. As BDA will form an integral part of ICT Services, efforts to drive the development of the BDA industry in Malaysia will no doubt complement the Digital Malaysia initiative and be in tandem with the DM 354 roadmap. Thus, MDeC believes that Malaysia is ready to embrace the vast opportunities that Big Data Analytics has to offer as we sow the seeds to grow Malaysia into a developed country driven by the digital economy by 2020." said Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, CEO, MDeC.

The launch was followed by MDeC's one-day conference on Big Data themed "Big Data: Endless Possibilities" featuring speakers from Intel, Teradata, Dell, IBM, Amazon, MIMOS, HP Labs, and many more. Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur 2014 is organised with the support of the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, and Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU). Big Data Week in Kuala Lumpur will have a total of 18 related events - the highest number of activities in all the 30 participating cities worldwide.

The 3rd edition of Big Data Week also debuted on the 5th of May as the largest crowd-sourced festival of events, meet-ups, workshops and hackathons focused on the social, political, technological and commercial impacts of data. It brings together an anticipated 30,000 data practitioners across more than 200 events.

For further information on the "Big Data Week 2014 @ Kuala Lumpur" or to participate, please visit:www.bigdataweek.com/kualalumpur.