#SayaDigital movement aims to increase digital literacy among the B40 group, youths, senior citizens, and socio-economically vulnerable nationwide
The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) launched the #SayaDigital movement yesterday at the People’s Housing Project (PPR) flats at Hiliran Ampang, in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur.
The movement is designed to improve the digital skills of socio-economically disadvantaged Malaysians, enabling them to uplift their living standards and seize opportunities in the digital economy.
It is also part of the Malaysian Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDIGITAL), which is the Malaysian government’s broader initiative to become a high-income economy by using home-grown technologies and digital solutions.
When officially launching the #SayaDigital initiative, the Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said that to realise Malaysia’s digital economy vision, the digital literacy level of all Malaysians needs to be improved.
“The #SayaDigital initiative targets specific socio-economic groups through focused programs, seminars, and training schemes. This includes basic digital literacy and e-commerce training to help the people use digital platforms to earn a living,” said Muhyiddin.
To kickstart the momentum of #SayaDigital, three pilot programmes were held to raise digital literacy awareness involving 301 participants, with the latest being held at Kampung Desa Temuan in Bukit Lanjan last month. The participants attended a series of interactive workshops that exposed them to the digital skills needed to face challenges in the new normal.
This year, the #SayaDigital movement will focus on four components, namely training young people to become “Geng #SayaDigital” volunteers; creating awareness through digital literacy activities; conducting digital readiness assessments; and providing basic digital skills training to the community. To date, 25 Geng #SayaDigital have already been formed, including in Sabah and Sarawak to further enhance the programme nationwide. The campaign as a whole aims to benefit 10,000 Malaysians in socio-economically vulnerable rungs across the country.
“#SayaDigital supports MyDIGITAL’s comprehensive strategy that sets out a roadmap to achieve the vision of making Malaysia a regional leader in the digital economy by 2030. Through this, the Government aims to create 500,000 jobs; implement digitalisation initiatives to benefit 875,000 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and micro entrepreneurs; and become the catalyst for 5,000 start-ups,” added YB Dato’ Saifuddin Abdullah, Minister of Communications and Multimedia.
Aside from empowering the B40 community, the #SayaDigital initiative is also an opportunity to drive the adoption of local digital platforms and drive a sustainable digital ecosystem in Malaysia.
Datuk Wira Dr Hj. Rais Hussin Mohamed Ariff, Chairman of MDEC said, “With the #SayaDigital movement, we can drive traffic to local e-commerce platforms. Although major e-commerce players in Malaysia are currently foreign players, we can and should encourage suitable, Malaysian platforms to grow and safeguard our competitive landscape.”
Surina Shukri, Chief Executive Officer of MDEC also added that the #SayaDigital initiative is a stepping stone to help the country’s digital-skilled employment shortage. “Individuals with efficient digital skills such as coding, animation, Big Data analysis, machine learning and Cloud Computing are greatly needed in driving forward the digital economy during this pandemic. According to the latest MDEC study, there are currently 47,000 digital job opportunities advertised on major job search portals in Malaysia,” she said.
“This shows that the country’s digital-skilled labor market remains competitive amid these challenging times. It also provides a sign of the country’s digital economic growth. In this regard, MDEC’s #SayaDigital is a timely effort that will get more people to learn digital skills,” she added.
