Ex-Mimos CTO, Thillai Raj joins Malaysian digital ID firm WISE AI as senior technology advisor

• Raj brings over 30 years technological expertise & leadership experience
• Aims to introduce technological innovations into Wise AI’s existing product line

Wise AI Sdn Bhd has appointed former MIMOS Bhd chief technology officer (CTO) Thillai Raj (pic) as its senior technology advisor. In his new role, Thillai Raj will help the Sunway-backed artificial intelligence company strengthen its product innovation efforts and to accelerate its business expansion in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. Sunway invested in them last Sept for an undisclosed sum.

MIMOS is Malaysia’s national applied research and development centre under the Ministry of Science, Technology And Innovation (MOSTI).

Raj has more than 30 years of technological expertise and leadership experience under his belt. During his 15 years tenure with MIMOS, he led efforts to have over 600 patents granted and was recognised as ASEAN’s Top 50 Senior Technology Executive.

Prior to MIMOS, Raj oversaw a global engineering workforce of over 20,000 as the global engineering director at Motorola in Penang. He also holds several patents, is a Six Sigma Black Belt, and currently sits as a member of the i-Connect Steering Committee of the Academy of Science Malaysia, as well as an ACCA ExpertLink panel member.

According to a 2019 McKinsey report, market opportunities within the Digital ID space is expected to create an economic value equivalent to 6% of emerging economies’ GDP by 2030. In Malaysia alone, this represents US$28 billion (RM115 billion) worth of economic opportunities, claims Wise AI, taking 6% and applying it to Malaysia’s total GDP.

“I am looking forward to joining Wise AI at such an exciting time. The team here has done a stellar job enhancing its artificial intelligence capabilities and developing a reliable solution that can be used by both the public sector and financial institutions,” says Raj.

“Wise AI’s Digital ID solutions have already been adopted by the Malaysian government and multi-industry enterprises. I will be focusing on building on top of these existing successes, optimising value creation and business growth, and looking out for opportunities to introduce technological innovations into the existing product line.”

“We are fortunate to have Thillai Raj on board as an advisor for Wise AI. His wealth of knowledge that spans over decades will prove invaluable to the growth of the company,” says Wise AI cofounder, David Lim.

In near future, Wise AI is looking towards aggressively expanding beyond its Malaysian borders into the ASEAN market. They are also looking to enhance their identity verification and authentication methods to go above and beyond the region’s regulatory requirements to combat rising fraud cases.

“Developments within the Digital ID space are starting to take off in this region. While it is crucial for us to go after the latest and greatest innovations to include within our products, Raj has the keen sense of transforming these new technologies into tangible values that our clients are able to take advantage of,” says Lim.