Five PIKOM Chapters: To Rejuvenate and Drive Malaysia’s ICT Industry

KUALA LUMPUR, 8th March 2018 – The National ICT Association of Malaysia (PIKOM), today shares its plans on how it intends to drive Malaysia’s ICT industry to greater heights under the helm of its newly appointed Chairman, Ganesh Kumar Bangah.

In his address to the Malaysian media at a hosted luncheon, Ganesh shared PIKOM’s three main objectives as the following: –

  1. To drive value to members through targeted activities driven via PIKOM’s five Chapters;
  2. To further strengthen PIKOM’s positionas the Voice of the ICT industry by becoming the nation’s private-sector ‘compass’ for digital initiatives;
  3. To achieve self-sustainabilitywith a sharp focus on high impact activities.

The five chapters are PIKOM CIO Chapter, Outsourcing Malaysia, E-Commerce Malaysia Chapter, PIKOM Cybersecurity Chapter and Venture Capital Chapter.

PIKOM Chairman Ganesh also introduced the latest addition of the PIKOM Venture Capital Chapter under its umbrella.

He says, “As the National ICT Association of Malaysia, PIKOM is constantly looking at how to best serve the local tech industry by having its finger on the pulse of the market.

“The setting up of the PIKOM Venture Capital Chapter is timely for 2018, as we need to put in concerted efforts to draw in more foreign investment know-how into Malaysia’s ICT industry to accelerate our young ICT companies towards achieving high growth.”

Towards this objective, PIKOM is collaborating with strategic partner Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to kick off Sea Dragon, an annual sustainable Venture Pitch Platform for Southeast Asian start-ups and scale-ups for investments, growth and global market expansion.

In this pitching event scheduled in May, Southeast Asian start-ups and scale-ups will be matched with potential regional and global investors with as much as US$25 million funding to be raised.

“We are looking to attract investors to this platform from North Asia market including China,” said Ganesh.

Sea Dragon is one of the high impact activities PIKOM has planned via its five PIKOM Chapters – each of which have been identified to cover priority areas in developing the nation’s ICT sector, he added.

“PIKOM seriously upholds its role in creating a highly conducive ecosystem for local ICT brands, companies and organisations to thrive in Malaysia. Each of these Chapters address specific areas of ICT where developments can provide the most value to the market,” he said.

E-COMMERCE FAIR – PIKOM’s Networking ‘LinkUp’ Platform

The other area that PIKOM expects to garner huge interest is in the area of e-Commerce, which it will run activities under the E-Commerce Malaysia Chapter.

Ganesh, who doubles up as the E-Commerce Malaysia Chapter Chairman, says, “PIKOM’s E-Commerce Malaysia Chapter singularly drives towards the same objectives of the Government’s National E-Commerce Strategic Roadmap – that is to boost e-Commerce adoption among Malaysia’s SMEs by doubling the current number of e-Commerce-enabled SMEs to 350,000 by 2020.”

He draws attention to the PIKOM e-Commerce Fair – which is essentially the association’s in-house networking platform to link up local SMEs with over 100 of PIKOM’s technology enabler members, so that the SMEs can successfully onboard to e-Commerce quicker.

Preparing for WCIT 2020

As Malaysia sets to host the 24th World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) in Malaysia in the year 2020 together, PIKOM will also be hastening the groundwork for this global event that will put the country as its focal point.

WCIT 2020 will be jointly hosted by PIKOM together with MDEC.

“Year 2018 is also the time that we will be ramping up the efforts for WCIT 2020. Over the next months, we will be announcing the collaborative partners for WCIT, as well as the appointment of the new CEO,” said Ganesh.