KUCHING (Feb 3): The Kuching Smart City Masterplan (KSCMP), part of Sarawak’s Smart City initiatives, aims to enable service providers within the Smart City ecosystem to participate in innovating city services, said Dr Zaidi Razak.
The Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) general manager said KSCMP will also map out the development of a core smart city digital infrastructure platform and essential shared smart city applications.
“With that, the government agencies, private sector, and community will be able to deliver their services and products using the shared smart city applications.
“Invariably, this will lead to an ecosystem that has better optimisation of resources and enable trusted collaboration with the private sector, resulting in sustainable accelerated growth of the Sarawak Digital Economy,” he said as a panellist of the Malaysia Smart Cities Alliance Association (MSCA) Retreat 2023 in Cyberjaya on Wednesday.
A statement today said SMA, an MSCA affiliate, was invited to share Sarawak’s Smart City initiatives, its future development plans, and opportunities in digital economy and Smart City in Sarawak during the retreat.
As part of the state government’s policy to focus on digital economy to propel Sarawak to achieve developed status by 2030, Zaidi said innovation and development should not only depend on government investment but also the involvement of the private sector, start-ups, and individuals.
“With the Sarawak Smart City ecosystem designed to be a secure, open, and technology agnostic platform, incorporating a wide array of robust and best of breed technologies and solutions for entities to build on, it will enable lower total cost of ownership, faster development and implementation. Consequently, this has the propensity to attract twin cities partnership and generates investment and talent inflow and retention,” he said.
On Wednesday’s session, he said there has been an overwhelming response from attendees.
“Not only are they keen to share their expertise with Sarawak but they are also willing to learn from SMA on the Sarawak Smart City initiatives,” Zaidi said.
He urged MSCA’s strategic partners to share their value proposition with Sarawak and work together to achieve the state’s Post Covid-19 Development Strategy (PCDS) 2030 goals.
The one-day MSCA Retreat was for all strategic partners to share their current and future development plans with over 100 attendees.
Among the MSCA strategic partners in attendance were PLANMalaysia, Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), Smart Selangor Delivery Unit (SSDU), TechnologyDepository Agency (TDA), Malaysian Research Accelerator for Technology & Innovation (MRANTI), Malaysian Photovoltaic Industry Association (MPIA), and Malaysia Industry Forward Association (MIPA).
Under PCDS 2030, one of the seven strategic thrusts is to accelerate economic growth by digitalisation through Smart City infrastructure to drive ease of doing business and making Sarawak an investment destination of choice.
Sarawak will host the World Congress Innovation and Technology (WCIT) 2023 at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) on Oct 4-6.
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