China’s leading provider of public cloud services, Alibaba Cloud – one of the pillars of Alibaba Group’s digital technology and intelligence – launched a new talent programme and revealed numerous cloud-based and creative solutions during the Alibaba Cloud Day KL summit held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud offers a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualisation services, large-scale computing, security, management and application services, big data analytics, a machine-learning platform and IoT services.
“As part of Malaysia’s plan to transform the country into a regional leader in the digital economy, we welcome technology providers to invest in Malaysia and leverage on the skill sets and capabilities of local talents,” said YB Dato’ Sri Dr Adham Baba, Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation (MOSTI), who inaugurated the programme with Alibaba Cloud. This is a remark on Alibaba Cloud’s sublime efforts to support local businesses here in Malaysia with innovative cloud technology and professional services. Not to forget, the two local data centres already built by the cloud company to support Malaysian organisations.
(From left to right) Leon Chen, General Manager of Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, Datuk Ts. Dr Mohd Nor Azman Hassan, Deputy Secretary General, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), Kun Huang, General Manager of Malaysia, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, YB Dato’ Sri Dr Adham Baba, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), Xiong Wuzhen，Vice President, General Manager of Enterprise Service Cloud, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence launched the Digital Heroes Program during Alibaba Cloud Day KL Summit 2022 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
The Science, Technology and Innovation Minister urged Malaysian businesses to fully utilise the cloud and other innovative services to accelerate the innovation cycle. Adham claimed that cloud services, such as Alibaba’s Cloud, will immediately allow the innovation cycle to kick off.
He predicted that as cloud infrastructure providers proliferated, the government would have greater leeway in selecting the most cost-effective and technically suitable innovative options.
Becoming a Hero
The new talent initiative – The Digital Heroes Program – orchestrated by the current market’s leading cloud service provider, aims to encourage students to pursue careers in the digital realm, foster collaboration between the academic and professional sectors, and prepare the country to attract and retain top talent in the field.
The Digital Heroes Program is the next generation of the Alibaba Cloud Academic Empowerment Program (AAEP), which helps promising young computer scientists by partnering with recognised academic institutions across the country. The Digital Heroes Program expands on existing internship and AAEP initiative programmes by adding:
- MY Digital Talent in U Competition, a contest where students and faculty can win access to cloud computing education and training.
- National University Tour, a cross-country lecture series wherein Alibaba Cloud’s business developers, solution architects, and hand-picked important players in the industry teach and introduce local talents to cloud computing in depth.
- Student Ambassador, a programme that gives students in the area the chance to take part in Alibaba Cloud’s activities and thereby hone their leadership, professionalism, and interpersonal communication abilities.
According to Kun Huang, General Manager of Malaysia, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, the epicentre of the Digital Heroes Program, is not just to provide local students with innovative digital experiences but also for Alibaba Cloud to create a sustainable pool of digital talents which would contribute to the local business ecosystem.
He goes on, “As a worldwide leader in the cloud, we are excited to be a part of this initiative and want to use our best-in-class technologies and years of experience to help nurture Malaysia’s homegrown talent pool and propel the country even further down its digital transformation path.”
Green is the new Black
Being environmentally aware is so in trend these days that you could say green is the new black. Alibaba Cloud, an essential infrastructure player in the green economy, has presented its initiatives and state-of-the-art approaches to establishing sustainable and environmentally friendly cloud computing ecosystems at the Summit. Energy Expert, a sustainability platform developed by Alibaba Cloud and released at the end of June 2018, enables businesses all over the world to track and reduce their carbon footprint.
Being regarded as one of the world’s leading cloud service providers, Alibaba Cloud boasts a network of 85 availability zones in 28 regions throughout the globe, offering a highly secure, scalable, robust cloud architecture to enable global customers to embrace digital innovation. Further, in 2018, it opened its first regional cloud-based Anti-DDoS Scrubbing Centre in Malaysia, making it the sole global cloud provider with local data centres in the country.
At the Alibaba Cloud Day KL Summit, the Chinese tech giant unveiled the Digital Heroes programme in addition to many other new technologies for businesses, such as the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to decrease carbon footprints in sectors as diverse as manufacturing, arts, and finance. Speakers from companies like Genting Malaysia Berhad, Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad, Entomo Malaysia Sdn Bhd, and China Mobile International were also present in sharing their expertise and knowledge during the Cloud as a Driving Force of the Digital Economy forum.
