Bring marginalised young people and industry leaders on the same platform for career guidance and mentorships.
Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), Malaysia’s lead digital economy agency, is ramping up its efforts in enabling a digital learning landscape for youth through strategic collaborations with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Yayasan Peneraju Pendidikan Bumiputera.
With the aim to fortify digital talent amid the COVID-19 recovery, both collaborations were secured via MDEC #mydigitalmaker Movement, a joint public-private-academia partnership launched in August 2016.
The initiative, which is part of the agency’s #SayaDigital agenda, has benefited more than 2.2 million children through the integration of computational thinking into the national school curriculum and co-curricular activities organised by MDEC and its ecosystem partners.
“The fast-changing talent market brings many new opportunities for young people. Strong fundamental and transferable skills fostered from their early years will be key in nurturing them to become an agile and digitally competent workforce.
“This strategic collaboration with UNICEF and Yayasan Peneraju marks MDEC’s continuous effort in ensuring that Malaysia continues to produce a pool of digitally innovative and creative talents in line with the goals of the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDIGITAL),” said Dr. Sumitra Nair, Chief Digital Skills and Jobs Officer, MDEC.
UNICEF
Through the collaboration, MDEC and UNICEF aim to create opportunities and better career outcomes for marginalised young people by bringing them together with industry leaders and experts on the same platform for career guidance and mentorships.
The partnership entails on-the-job training and industrial experience opportunities for young people via apprenticeships as well as skills-building opportunities.
“We are elated to partner with MDEC in delivering skills-building opportunities and creating better career outcomes together with the young people in Malaysia.
“Strategic partnerships such as this will accelerate the delivery of inclusive opportunities in education, employment and entrepreneurship. It is in our interest to build the skills of young people so that no one is left behind,” said Dr Rashed Mustafa Sarwar, UNICEF Representative to Malaysia and Special Representative to Brunei Darussalam.
Through the partnership, both parties will be focusing on joint and independent programmes that are academic and career-oriented developed by MDEC and UNICEF. The programmes include:
- #MyDigitalMaker Fair
- Premier Digital Tech Institutions
- Future Skills for All (FS4A) programme
- KitaConnect Skills-Building Workshops
- MDEC + UNICEF Youth Employability Readiness programme
Yayasan Peneraju
Focusing on developing a forward-looking digital landscape for Bumiputera’s youth, MDEC has partnered with Yayasan Peneraju to provide a knowledge-enhancing
programme, Yayasan Peneraju High Impact Programme – Competition (Technology), for school students nationwide via a virtual platform.
Fully funded by Yayasan Peneraju, the series of online sessions began in early 2021 and has been benefiting more than 1,000 young Bumiputera students, aged 13 to 17 years old, through learning and exploring digital technology skill sets via online competitions.
“Yayasan Peneraju sees the strategic cooperation with MDEC as an important factor in responding to the challenge of nurturing human capital, especially the Bumiputera talent, to the highest potential in deepening technological expertise.
“As an agency under the Prime Minister’s Department, our mandate is to increase the quality of professional Bumiputera talents in the high impact sectors. We must ensure that our beneficiaries are also equipped with skills and technological knowledge so that they can excel in their career and life,” said Ts Mohd Muzzammil Ismail, CEO, Yayasan Peneraju.
