International Collaboration

"SOUTH KOREA COLLABORATE WITH MSC MALAYSIA SMART SCHOOL INITIATIVE"

Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) - South Korea Institute for Electronic Commerce (KIEC) workshop on developing education content and application.

South Korea, the leader in broadband is keen to explore education content development in MSC Malaysia to further enhance the investment opportunities between both countries.

MDeC's Chief Executive Officer Dato' Badlisham Ghazali said South Korea's interest in MSC Malaysia Smart School's content development marks a significant milestone in the collaborative efforts between Malaysia and the South Korean counterparts.

It aims to involve the importance of working out a winning formula for both parties by examining the unique strength and capacity of the Korean Dream Consortium (KDC) companies and the MSC Malaysia status companies.

The MDeC - KIEC programme was born out of the signing of memorandums of understanding (MOU) that was developed between MDeC and KIEC during the World Congress in IT (WCIT) that was held in Kuala Lumpur last year. In fact, a Malaysian delegation led by MDeC had preceded this current programme.

MDeC also foresees greater participation from its counterpart of the many investment opportunities in MSC Malaysia and the capacity of South Korean companies represented in enriching the e-learning initiative in Korea with the content and systems especially those for post-secondary and life-long learning programmes.

"This experience is invaluable for MSC Malaysia as we spearhead the Integrated Content Development Taskforce (ICON) that assists the Malaysian government in generating content for the High Speed Broadband (HSBB) initiative,"

"While we learn from your experience in deploying on-line content for wider access in informal learning, we hope to offer you our experience in the development of educational content for both formal and informal learning for primary and secondary level schools (K-12). This is an example of a collaborative perspective which I am sure will be explored further," Dato' Badlisham added.

"Through your inputs and our established ties with the Korea Educational Research Information Service (KERIS) and Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI), we can continuously benchmark and enhance our locally developed Smart School Qualification Standards (SSQS) and our implementation model," said Badlisham.

MDeC will continue to play its role in this MDeC - KIEC collaboration in order to facilitate the growth and development of education through ICT and at the same time serves the collaboration of the industries that are supporting this collaboration. MDeC therefore, welcomes MSC Malaysia status companies and other companies to continue to play a part in this collaboration.

Meanwhile KIEC's director of Knowledge Business Promotion Division Sang-il Lee said, " if you look at the global ICT trend, not only hardware such as network and computer system are the important technologies, but contents such as culture, education, game, entertainment, etc. are also rapidly developing."

E-learning especially is recognized as a core future industry enabling transition to knowledge-based information society and its importance is ever growing globally. The expertise derived from this has created many spin offs. Among them inlcude the Smart Schools Project in selected schools in Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) countries - which is a collaborative effort between the Economic Planning Unit (EPU).

In fact, MDeC's experience in K-12 education development through the integration of ICT has been internationally endorsed. Recently, MSC Malaysia's smart school initiative has been selected as a recipient of the United Nation's South-South Innovation Award in New York.

The South Korean delegation was comprised of KIEC, Dunet, Daulsoft, Commbox Korea, 4cSoft, Mediopia Tech, Amasasoft and the Malaysian e-learning companies were represented by TM Smart School, Multi Media Synergy Corporation, Commbax Sdn Bhd, Integrated Technology Haus Sdn Bhd, Dynaniaga Sdn Bhd.