IBM: We stand by Malaysia through ‘thick and thin’ as we celebrate Merdeka

By Catherine Lian

Managing Director of IBM Malaysia

As 31st August comes around again, and we prepare to celebrate the 64th Hari Merdeka, I am proud to call myself Malaysian, and to witness our unity and tenacity amid the current developments and challenges our beloved country is facing.

At IBM, we have rallied together to face the myriad challenges, while capitalising on opportunities for Malaysia for over six decades.

It is our objective to see Malaysia as ‘one united nation’ marching forward into the future. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic posing all sorts of challenges for our country in the past year and a half, I am confident we shall overcome it in due course and emerge even stronger as a united country in the ‘new norm’.

As a company, IBM Malaysia is also proud to have been part of Malaysia’s journey from the very beginning – we have been around since 1961 and have just recently celebrated our 60th anniversary – and we remain committed to our goal of participating in Malaysia’s nation-building efforts through sustainable development.

Indeed, throughout sixty years, IBM has always aspired to be a technology leader, providing cutting-edge solutions for Malaysia’s private and public sectors alike, and playing our role passionately as an accountable and responsible corporate citizen. Along the way, IBM has enabled Malaysia to continue fostering local innovation initiatives, and played a part in transforming education while also enabling jobs and opportunities for our country.

Through our technology and culture of innovation, IBM has helped transform Malaysia into becoming the Digital Economy leader it is today.

Public-private partnerships, and empowering Malaysia with hybrid cloud and AI

At IBM we believe that innovative technology, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT), is what will continue to drive Malaysia and Malaysians forward into a brighter future.

When the pandemic arrived last year, practically overnight, we had to adjust to life in a virtual world to protect the most important things – our health, safety and one another. Businesses were no exception.

It became clear to many businesses that they were not as well prepared as they could be to support frictionless and secure digital experiences. Every industry had to adapt quickly, and many embraced cloud to accelerate their digital transformation.

In fact, the 2021 IBM CEO Study reveals that 60% of Malaysian CEOs surveyed recognise cloud as an enabler of agility and 39% of the CEOs surveyed trust AI as one of the top technologies that will deliver benefits for them.

However, cloud is not a destination, but rather a key enabler for transformation. Cloud can be complicated, and the focus on digital acceleration brought to light the gaps that can arise without the right strategy.

What will enable speed and agility is a single, open IT architecture that extends from the core data centre to the very edge of where data and computing takes place – an open and common architecture that enables you to build once and run anywhere.

Hybrid cloud is about meeting you where you’re at in terms of the IT infrastructure choices you’ve made and the various places you do computing — whether it’s in a public cloud, or a private cloud, or on-premises, and providing orchestration, management, and application portability among them to create a single, flexible, optimal cloud infrastructure for running computing workloads.

I believe adopting the right cloud architecture, an open, hybrid cloud architecture can solve these problems and accelerate innovation.

We are not stopping here. We continue to plan and execute several exciting collaborations with the public sector and with private enterprises so that positive ripples from such initiatives continue to benefit government, businesses and the rakyat.

For instance, TIME dotCom Bhd (TIME) recently adopted IBM’s Cloud Pak for Network Automation, enabling its network operations to become more efficient and flexible across a wider range of environments, while increasing the speed of delivery for new services.

This artificial intelligence (AI)-powered automation solution will help TIME to modernise its network operations and deliver fast and secure services to its customers.

Transforming education, while enabling jobs and opportunities

The pace of digital acceleration and the demand for core technical and professional skills continues to intensify. At IBM, we believe that learners at all stages of the employment continuum need access to the skills that will allow them to compete in an ever-evolving economy. IBM is committed to bridge the skill gap for students, job seekers, and the organisations that support them through our programmes and platforms for decades.

IBM SkillsBuild is designed to give aspiring professionals a powerful set of resources at no charge to help them cultivate meaningful careers.

SkillsBuild is IBM’s open, online learning program offering over 1,000 interactive courses in cybersecurity, data analysis, cloud computing, and other technical disciplines, as well as courses to build workplace skills such as collaboration and presentation. The courses are available in multiple languages, with content that includes contributions from industry leaders such as Red Hat® and cybersecurity company Fortinet.

IBM SkillsBuild is catered for students, educators, executives, job seekers, and organisations that are interested in infusing a life-long learning culture and up-skilling.

It brings together two world-class platforms under one brand to help students, job-seekers, and organisations opt into the learning experience that’s right for them.

As we all come together to celebrate Malaysia’s independence this week, I wish all my fellow Malaysians ‘Selamat Hari Merdeka’, and assure you that IBM will continue to be by your side through ‘thick and thin’.

Note: The above commentary was contributed by Catherine Lian, Managing Director of IBM Malaysia

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