TRANSFORM !!!

Transform Now, The Future Is Coming

The future that is coming is going to be both bizarre and unbelievable. It will transform entire industries, change the course of nations and turn individuals into super beings.

A convergence is taking place merging technology with human intelligence. Futurists are predicting a revolution that will transform our lives because of the advancements being made in nanotechnology and neuroscience.

This quote from Ian Pearson of British Telecom during a 2001 interview sums it up quite dramatically. He said:

“By mid-century computers will be linked directly into our nervous systems via nanotechnology, which is so small it could connect to every neuron in our brains. By about 2040 there will be a backup of our brains in a computer somewhere so that when we die it won’t be a major career problem.”

So when we speak about transformation we must take into consideration the colossal trends that these technologies are going to create.

Are we then future-ready?

It is clear that the world as we know it now is not going to stay that way for very long.

In fact the world as we know it now is becoming obsolete.

We are already 10 years into the new millennium and so much has happened in that one decade that has changed our lives.

The future is already taking shape as new technologies give industry the means to quantum leap into new realms we never thought possible before.

New terminologies are cropping up giving us a hint of what lies ahead. Terminologies such as augmented reality, cloud computing, social networking are some of them.

Collectively these are creating an impact in the marketplace and many industries are experimenting with these tools to originate new products that carry value for the consumer.

In addressing global issues new trends are sparked in many areas of our life. We know the importance being given to alternative energy, green technology, cloning, stem cells and other outcomes of intensive research.

Exciting new developments are taking place in those countries that have siphoned off the world’s best talents in science, IT, design, engineering, robotics, economics, medicine and other fields including those that are related to the entertainment sector.

The war for brainpower and talent
Many countries are losing their best brains to regions where development is intense and professionals are promised a better quality of life and in some instances free from persecution for their ideologies.

At the turn of the new millennium Africa had already lost a third of its skilled professionals and according to a BBC report it is costing the continent USD 4 billion a year to replace them with expatriates from the West.

The brain drain has literally strangled growth on the continent.

India loses USD 2 billion a year because of the emigration of computer experts to the US while New Zealand reports that almost a quarter of its most highly skilled people have left the country – the biggest exodus of skilled people from a developed nation.

More than one million Chinese did not return home after they completed their studies.

As we all know Malaysia has already lost some 700,000 people to other countries and has set up the Talent Corporation to woo them back under the 10th Malaysia Plan.

What is plain to see is that talent will go where it can grow the best and where it is appreciated the most.

A country or an organisation can have many talented people but if they are not able to put their talent to work then the outcome that can be derived from the utilization of such talent will be lost to both enterprise and nation.

Furthermore if a large number of people in a country realize they cannot give full scope to their talents they will go where they can fulfill their intellectual quest. They will go where they can do the best work and live the best life.

While we set out eagerly to woo back Malaysian talent we need to consider what is being done to keep the talent that we already possess? Each year we lose thousands of people to other countries, among them are skilled professionals.

The more talent we lose the harder it will be to achieve national aspiration to become a high-income, high-value, innovation-led economy.

We need to achieve the one thing that will accomplish the two things we desperately need to do.

The one thing is to put in place the ecosystem that has all the mechanisms and support for, talent development, idea generation, experimentation and commercialization.

The two things we will accomplish are in keeping the talent we have within the country as well as in bringing back the talent that we have lost.

Malaysia’s best talents won’t simply return or stay for the sake of good remuneration. They will want the conditions that support the growth of their talent.

The Talent Corporation set up to address the brain drain should create more opportunities for local talent. If we can put the talent of competent local people to best use and create an atmosphere and mechanism that would help talent flourish, the Malaysians settled abroad would flock back to Malaysia.

A simple, logical deduction.

Roadblocks to transformation
However, it is not so simple when you consider that there is a mismatch within the Government that desires the transformation and the bureaucracy that sets up the roadblocks.

The focus on regulations and compliance is killing the ability of this country to originate and create.

In education, for example, there is no room for creativity, let alone innovation. There is nothing for institutions of higher education to do but conform and comply to stay inside the boxes created by the authorities.

Think out of the box? God forbid!

Any move to innovate is discouraged and in fact, punished. And everyone knows that to innovate one may have to break tradition, in other words, break the rules.

But transform we must! We must re-invent the way we do things because it is not helping the country to move forward.

We have to start with the young because they will have to live and work in the future. Re-engineering human capital begins in the kindergarten. Here talent must be identified and as the child grows that talent must be nurtured and matured.

But the education system as we possess today is not designed to accommodate talent development. It runs on a specific framework that demands the child adapts. There is no room for talent development.

The talent that we see in this country is not the result of an excellent education system but individual efforts to develop themselves.

In view of the huge challenges faced by the country I feel the education system must be scrapped completely in order to re-build one that serves both people and nation better.

But to do so, to re-engineer and to re-invent requires a rare kind of courage.

It requires a severing of the umbilical cord that has attached us to practices that originated in the Industrial Age. Many feel we cannot go wrong with a system that has worked for so long. It has produced presidents and prime Ministers, entrepreneurs and entertainers, scientists and systems analysts, chefs and chemists, so on and so forth.

Most governments around the world seem to think that the best way to prepare for the future is to do better what we did in the past and just raise the standard.

But the world is about to make a quantum leap into a future where our children must be able to thrive in.
They must be prepared to excel in such a world.

They can only do so if they are allowed to bring out latent talent.

They can only be best if they are doing what they are passionate about.

This we must do.

Failure to do so is to be a servant to those who do.

- LIM KOK WING - Father Of Innovation