Crowdsourcing off to good start in Malaysia, challenges remain: Page 2 of 2

Opportunity for Malaysia
 
Malaysia’s efforts in crowdsourcing, the sorrowful state of crowdfunding aside, got a ringing endorsement from Carl Esposti, founder of crowdsourcing.org, the industry website.
 
“What’s being done in Malaysia with these examples – and how quickly you’re bringing it together -- shows a nimbleness and agility that bodes well for the country,” he told the media briefing.
 
He said one aspect of crowdsourcing that is promising but has yet to take off involves business processes.
 
“Business processes is a slightly different thing – our experience has been that companies that have very rich media content and big data requirements, and have very Internet-intensive business, have been the industries driving it for now.
 
“The reason they’ve been driving it is they have very new problems that older businesses have not faced,” he said, citing Internet companies that find they have to scale up very quickly for a global marketplace, and suddenly need to translate or localise their content, such as services or product information, for new markets.
 
“This is an opportunity for a country like Malaysia,” said Esposti. “Online travel sites like Expedia are always looking for content to be translated and localised, not just for other markets but also for domestic consumption.”
 
MDeC’s Badlisham believes there is requirement for such higher end services in Malaysia. “I think the demand is out there, but we have to generate and uncover it, while the Government and our partners address the supply portion,” he said.
 
 

Partnerships in place

At the Digital Malaysia National Crowdsourcing Conference, MDeC announced partnerships for crowd business collaboration and crowdfunding under its Digital Malaysia initiative.
 
The partnerships featured three crowd collaboration initiatives to enable the sourcing of microworkers from amongst the B40 and one crowdfunding programme to fund educational outreach efforts to rural areas.
 
The platform partners announced on June 10 were the Malaysia site of YourPartTime.com, MyKerja.com.my, Edusource.mmsc.com.my and iPotensi.com.my, said Badlisham.
 
YourPartTime.com is managed by Human Capital Connection and edusource.mmsc.com.my is managed by Multimedia Synergy Corporation. They will be matched with industry players who will offer micro-tasking opportunities such as copywriting, data entry and telemarketing to the public, particularly the B40 group.
 
Additionally, the conference also featured a partnership for crowdfunding opportunities through pitchIN, whose collaboration with Teach For Malaysia (pic above) aims to generate funds for projects initiated by Teach For Malaysia Fellows, which address educational challenges within high-need classrooms and communities.
 
 
Related Stories:
 
Digital Malaysia’s Pokok platform to help underprivileged
 
pitchIN pitches crowd-funding, Malaysian style
 
Crowdsourcing: It’s about disruptive business models
 
Crowd-funding lessons for start-ups … and a challenge
 

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