MDEC’s MyDigitalMaker fair returns to inspire young

• MyDigitalMaker Fair 2021 will be held between Oct 11 to Oct 21
• The fair will focus on Perak, East Coast, Kedah, Sabah, central & southern regions

The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) announced the return of the #MyDigitalMaker Fair 2021. Held for the second year through a virtual platform, the fair which will run from Oct 11 to Oct 21 and will be a five-part series with each focusing on different localities namely Perak, East Coast, Kedah, Sabah as well as the Central and Southern regions.

In a statement, MDEC said each series has been designed to give visitors a hands-on digital experience through a variety of exciting programmes that covers career path awareness, digital-making workshops for teachers and students, self-learning content, competitions, webinars, and exhibitions.

The digital fair serves as the flagship event for MDEC’s #mydigitalmaker Movement which was created to provide experiential opportunities as well as inspire future generations to embark on career pathways towards digital technology, in line with the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDigital), MDEC said.

“We must future-proof our children with essential skills that will help them thrive in the fast-evolving digital economy,” said Annuar Musa, communications and multimedia minister.

A joint public-private-academia initiative, the #mydigitalmaker Movement was launched in August 2016 to create a nation of digital makers by transforming Malaysian youth from digital users to digital producers, a mission established to address the need of future-proofing the next generation, MDEC noted.

It involves strategic programmes that help to strengthen digital skills among youth such as coding, application development, 3D printing, robotics, embedded systems and data analytics.

“The #mydigitalmaker Movement is a crucial programme in inculcating a love for all-things digital and equipping our next generation of digital producers and leaders with not only the necessary skills and knowledge, but a digital-first mindset,” said Mahadhir Aziz (pic), chief executive officer, MDEC. 

“The 12th Malaysia Plan has made digital central to the growth of the economy and MDEC will continue to drive the digital economy forward, in line with Malaysia’s vision,” he added.

To date, more than 2.2 million children have benefited from the initiative through the integration of computational thinking and coding into the national school curriculum, co-curricular activities conducted in schools and at extra-curricular activities conducted in more than 60 Digital Maker Hubs and by the #mydigitalmaker ecosystem partners, MDEC said.

To provide more localised content at the grassroots level, this year’s virtual fair is being jointly hosted by five strategic partners - Perak’s State Education Department, Jazari Robot Resources, Kedah State Government via Kedah Digital Center, iTrain Kids Sdn Bhd and Petrosains Sdn Bhd.

The virtual fair will commence with the Perak session, which is also being extended to Penang, happening from Oct 11 to Oct 15. Participants can look forward to workshops and sharing sessions by Digital Perak Corporation Holdings, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, National STEM Association (Perak) and Asia Drone IoT Technologies, MDEC said.

Overall, the #MyDigitalMaker Fair 2021 will also feature exclusive content from a wide range of tech and communication players such as TikTok Malaysia, IBM Malaysia, PlayStation Studios Malaysia, Digi Telecommunications and Maxis, as well as local and international non-profit organisations such as UNICEF Malaysia and Code.org, MDEC said.

In conjunction with the fair, TikTok Malaysia is supporting the effort to ignite interest towards digital technologies to school students and teachers by launching the #BelajarDigital awareness campaign.

For more information on the #mydigitalmaker Movement, visit here.