Khazanah Partners Sunway Education Group To Launch 42 Malaysia

• Free for those 18 & above, develop 10k tech talent within 10 years
• Expanding beyond KL campus with sites in Johor, Penang & Kuching in coming years

Khazanah Nasional, Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund, entered into a joint venture with Sunway Education Group (SEG) to establish 42 Malaysia (42MY), a peer-to-peer computer science school that aims to develop 10,000 skilled tech talent within the next 10 years.

Launched in France with its first campus in Paris in 2013 and with its Born2Code tagline, the 42 programme is part of a network of 47 campuses across 26 countries that offers free education for participants aged 18 years and above, regardless of education and socioeconomic background. 42 KL, the Malaysian campus of 42 was launched on 23 July, 2020 by the Sunway Education Group (SEG) and is situated in Sunway City, Kuala Lumpur.

The programme’s education model focuses on peer-to-peer and practical project-based learning approaches that resemble a real-work environment where learners can learn coding while working on real-life industry projects with 42MY’s participating corporate partners.

Khazanah’s Managing Director, Amirul Feisal Wan Zahir (pic left) said, “The availability of talent is crucial to the continuous development of any industry. To this end, 42MY will further bolster the domestic startup and tech ecosystem by nurturing and developing Malaysian talents, complementing the nation’s digital economy development agenda and strengthening its IR 4.0 capability. The joint venture with SEG demonstrates what we can achieve through collaboration and partnership, and we welcome the opportunity to work with partners that share a similar vision in developing our nation’s digital and skilled talent supply.”

Khazanah plans to roll out other initiatives in upskilling and reskilling the local workforce via mobilising underutilised sources of talent through, Technical & Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutes. In particular, the initiatives aim to provide in-demand skills for access to high-quality jobs.

Founder and Trustee of Jeffrey Cheah Foundation, Jeffrey Cheah (pic right) said, “We are honoured to announce this joint venture with Khazanah to expand the 42 programmes nationwide through new campuses in Johor, Penang and Kuching in the coming years, and potentially across more cities too. With this expansion, we can provide more students across the country with quality education, discovering and nurturing more tech talent and in the process establish Malaysia as the leading digital economy in ASEAN.”

The Jeffrey Cheah Foundation owns and governs all entities under SEG and is the largest of its kind.

42 Managing Director, Sophie Viger said, “We would like to thank Khazanah for this vote of confidence, not just in 42, but also for sharing our vision in empowering the next leading generation of tech talent and values of promoting collaboration, inclusivity, adaptability, creativity, empathy, critical thinking and communication skills.”

Meanwhile, Khazanah is developing an impact assessment framework called the SEMARAK Initiative, which converges global methodologies but is adapted for the Malaysian context.

Khazanah will perform periodic reviews and refine its approach for SEMARAK when it is applied across its Dana Impak and corporate responsibility projects and welcomes other organisations to participate in further development and adoption of the framework.