Digital Disruptors

MALAYSIA TECH MONTH 2021: DIGITAL DISRUPTORS

Malaysia Tech Month 2021 featured an enlightening session themed “Five Lessons of Resiliency and How Exponential Technologies Are Transforming Businesses and Society”.

The Digital Disruptors session featured five speakers who addressed various topics on disruptions in industry and business. The session was moderated by MDEC’s Gopi Ganesalingam, Vice President Tech Ecosystems and Globalisation (TEG), and Ryan Chan, Head of Global Business Development, Tech Ecosystems and Globalisation.

In his opening address, Gopi said, “Undeniably, technology is changing the very fabric of our society. We are experiencing digital transformation that has fundamentally altered the way we work, live and interact with one another.” He adds that in any domain technology is driving business growth and inclusion, empowering individuals, driving entrepreneurship, improving the delivery of healthcare services and enabling crucial changes in our ability to tackle shared societal challenges.

The discussion encompassed the driving of purpose to technology, creating positive outcomes to the wider world. dealing with powerlines, Aerodyne is able to accelerate the process by four times. Common concerns on reliability, safety and compliance to regulatory requirements have all been addressed with track record and proven effectiveness to drive adoption rates.

KAMARUL A MUHAMED Founder & Group CEO, of Aerodyne Group - The Future of Flying Robots

On the topic of large organisations managing critical assets across large areas, Kamarul explains that lack of proper management leads to rising costs, revenue loss, and threats to national security, among others. He proposes the use of robots in effectively and efficiently managing these assets. In using drones, the question has always been whether these equipment are ready for commercial use as they are often viewed as only beneficial for military purposes. Kamarul shares that using robots is an advanced approach to solving problems in industry, business and government. He added that through Aerodyne’s robots, the company is able to provide faster, better, cheaper and safer solutions to the market. On the readiness of robots for industry, Kamarul says that Aerodyne has been able to show that productivity can be increased by 300%. When

TS. ALVIN KOH Founder & CEO, Blinkware Technology – Saving Lives Through Advanced AI Technology

Alvin explains that Blinkware, a pioneer in advanced AI software especially image processing and vision technology, pivoted to be a society-centric company in order to deliver affordable solutions. Previously, the company had successfully completed a project for a Japanese car manufacturer to use its solution in their supply chain to detect defects. With that, as the demand for machine learning grows in the market, Blinkware started to focus on providing technology to fuel industry efficiencies. In 2018, dentists at a hospital in Adelaide, Australia approached Blinkware, to create a technology that allows them to identify cavities fast. At the same time, Blinkware was also working on more advanced technology for the medical field in regards to chest X-rays; and in 2019 when COVID-19 hit the world, Blinkware decided to focus on image processing and image recognition. The company created Airre Scan, an enhanced version of x-rays for the human body. Blinkware worked

closely with Malaysia’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) to pursue this development further to identify other diseases through chest x-rays. The company was able to identify six chronic diseases and specific medical issues via chest x-rays within 1.5 seconds, with only 3 seconds to generate a report. This would have normally taken radiologists 15 minutes. The process created workflow efficiency in radiology and enables mass diagnosis. Blinkware is committed towards its mandate of driving AI with communities at its heart to reduce mortality rates by early detection, mitigate future pandemic outbreaks through advanced antibody sequencing, and encouraging wealth distribution in developing countries through upskilling. Alvin shares that the future will focus on Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) where human train machines; Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) whereby machines think like humans; and, Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) whereby machines surpass humans.

WARREN LEOW Interim Group CEO, Inmagine – AI Technology in the Creative Space

Warren says that for the last 20 years, Inmagine has been providing the market with a complete creative ecosystem of tools such as Pixlr.com, the world’s largest online web-based editor, and Designs.AI for the creative industry. The company has a global workforce spread across various countries. On remote and hybrid work systems, Warren says the company manages its workforce effectively as it has always operated virtually for years, with most of its data hosted on cloud services. To compensate physical interactions, Inmagine has virtual engagement sessions with staff or “water cooler” chats. Warren points out that the company’s long-term goals would be to accommodate a blend of work-from-home and workin-office arrangements. Speaking about Inmagine disrupting the creative industry with its tools and products, Warren shares that the company created tools to aid the creative journey using AI technology, guided by the mantra “smarter, faster and easier”. In foreseeing the future, Warren highlights that creativity is set to be more accessible to more people with the help of technology, making the creation of professional content easier. He adds that with the increasing availability of opensource technology, innovation will continue to grow in the future, while there will a larger movement towards the sharing and decentralisation of content.

FONG CHOONG FOOK CEO, LGMS/ LE Global Services Sdn Bhd – Cybersecurity

Touching on the cybersecurity landscape, Fong explains that hackers today are working 24x7, mostly using automated hacking software, and they no longer distinguish their targets, regardless whether it is a large financial institution or a small non-profit charity organisation. He cautions that we need to be aware of the developments in the cybersecurity space, and should not just assume that all will be well with multiple layers of protection because hackers will continue to attack businesses. He says that common misconceptions include that anti-virus software are able to deter hackers, or that if there are no sensitive information then hackers are not interested. However, the reality is that even by using email online, everybody is exposed to cyberthreats and hacking. Today, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare and telecommunications, among other sectors, are all digitalised and interconnected. Fong adds that as the world increasingly relies on IoT privacy is eroded rapidly. He stressed that hackers can manipulate medical data and make changes to patients’ records thus jeopardising healthcare services. He calls for organisations to conduct vulnerability assessments to find loopholes in systems so that recommendations can be made to strengthen the security of their systems. Fong also explains that penetration testing is also crucial, involving testing the system’s strength and resilience against threats and security breaches.

SIM HON WAI Chief Operating Officer, MDT Innovations Sdn Bhd – IoT & Data: Key to Future Innovations

Sim shares that MDT is a deep-tech engineering involving IoT & digital twin system, digital business platform, as well as Fintech UPG switching and enablement. The company has a global presence and developed the smallest Near Field Communication (NFC) module. He highlights that data is mostly used for optimising equipment effectiveness, to conduct trend analysis, make predictions, and deliver sustainable innovations. However, he points out that almost all businesses failed because of oversight in data management. Sim adds that today, businesses are not maximising their potential due to insufficient data quality. He highlights that businesses need to look into areas that can be digitalised. MDT has introduced solutions that focus on location management, tracking the well-being of employees and to drive deep-learning. Sim adds that data can be overwhelming, hence data requires effective data management and data massaging to deliver highly dependable output. He explains that MDT is able to produce data that is relevant to specific industries while driving digital twin implementations.