Winners of the Malaysian prime minister’s ‘Best of the Best’ award are to go to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), according to Malaysian government agency Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC).
MDeC CEO Dato’ Badlisham Ghazali, said that local company Dapat Vista won the top slot for its Rakancop (Friends of the Police) SMS e-community product.
“Dapat Vista representatives will attend a week-long entrepreneur development programme at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sponsored by MDeC,” said Badlisham.
He said that there were also 18 other category winners of the 10th annual MSC Malaysia Asia Pacific Information & Communications Technology Alliance (MSC Malaysia APICTA) Awards 2009, said Badlisham.
“Each of the category winners will also be sponsored to represent Malaysia at the International APICTA awards, which will be held in Melbourne, Australia as part of the Asia Pacific Digital Innovation Summit from 14 to 17 December 2009,” he said.
“In addition, two students from the winning team of the Best of Secondary Student Project will be given scholarships to undertake ICT related courses at the Asia Pacific University College of Technology and Innovation (UCTI),” he said.
Jointly organised by MDeC and the Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry, Malaysia (PIKOM), MSC Malaysia APICTA this year is themed ‘Stimulating Creativity & Excellence in ICT’. The awards provide recognition to the achievements of individuals, students, entrepreneurs, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as organisations with operations in Malaysia that have contributed to building information and communication technology (ICT) applications and services that benefit Malaysians.
Catalyst for development
MDeC’s Badlisham said this year’s awards attracted a record number of 383 entries, which is more than any year in its decade-long history. Aside from Dapat Vista, the award winners include the following.
► e-Learning: won by MySaas for MySaas No Ordinary Learning
► e-Government & Services: won by MAMPU [Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit] for mySMS 15888 Government Gateway
► Security: won by GHL Systems for NetMATRIX Terminal Line Encryption
► e-Logistics—won by Pos Malaysia for Pos Integrated Track and Trace Information System (PITTIS)
► Media and Entertainment—won by: Shock3d! for ‘Alamaya, Garden of Beautiful Creatures’
► Tourism and Hospitality—won by Creative Advances Technology for Standard Online Tourism Architecture (SOTA)
► Start-up Companies—won by Packet One Networks (Malaysia) for P1 W1MAX
“Over the years, the MSC Malaysia APICTA Awards has been instrumental in giving recognition to world-class home grown ICT companies, and many of its alumni have gone on to greater heights in the regional and global stage,” said Badlisham.
“MSC Malaysia, our national ICT initiative that is the catalyst for development of ICT in Malaysia, has seen much success since its inception in August 1996,” said minister of science, technology and innovation (MOSTI), Datuk Dr Maximus Johnity Ongkili.
“It has played a significant role in the creation of many home-grown ICT-related products and services, talent and technopreneurs; the creation of hundreds of thousands of ICT-related jobs; and in shepherding industry development that has helped ICT companies and entrepreneurs to generate revenues amounting to billions of ringgit in total,” said Dr Ongkili.
