Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), Malaysia’s lead digital economy agency, today announced the fourth leg of the #MyDigitalMaker Fair 2021 with content exclusively curated for students and educators from the Central and Southern regions.
The week-long fair will be focusing on engaging and informative materials provided for the participants in collaboration with MDEC’s partner host, iTrain Kids Sdn Bhd, a tech-focus learning institution that will be made available across a virtual platform.
With the theme of “Raising Digital Heroes”, the fair will be held from 8th November until 14th November 2021 via #MyDigitalMaker’s Facebook page.
Throughout the week, participants will enjoy a variety of tech-focus and creative programmes including workshops, webinars and tutorials featuring topics such as animation, Internet of Things (IoT), cyber ethics, coding, web development as well as drone and robotics.
“Digital technology is vital for the future generation. As the lead digital economy agency in Malaysia, we must create a platform for young people to sharpen their digital skills and talents.
“New digital talents and skills could open up vast opportunities, and children who have these tools will have more advantages in surviving the knowledge-based society, which is one the pertinent goals of the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDIGITAL)”, said Dr. Sumitra Nair, Chief Digital Skills and Jobs Officer, MDEC.
During the virtual fair, more than 100 engaging and informative contents will be made available to participants, providing a virtual hands-on digital experience from industry experts such as PlayStation Studios Malaysia, IBM Malaysia, TM, Digi Telecommunications and many more.
The fair hosted by iTrain Kids will also be providing scholastic academic sessions by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Multimedia University, Taylor’s University, and Teach for Malaysia among others.
The Central and Southern series is a continuation of the fair’s earlier segments which have attracted more than 5,000 visitors while more than 16,000 are expected to participate in the entire fair.
iTrainKids is a tech-focus learning institution offering workshops and school holiday boot camps for children between the ages of seven and 17. To date, it has benefited more than 5,000 Malaysian children who have become coders and makers of various apps, games and websites.
The facility was awarded the “Digital Maker Hubs” status by MDEC through the #mydigitalmaker Movement in January 2019.
Digital Maker Hubs is a space built within a community to bring kids, educators, parents and industry experts together and encourage activities involving digital making.
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.
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 movement also supports the “Keluarga Malaysia” concept and the national goal to create an inclusive digital society through the MyDIGITAL and the Shared Prosperity Vision 2030.
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 as well as extra-curricular activities conducted in more than 60 Digital Maker Hubs and by the #mydigitalmaker ecosystem partners.
To provide more localised content at the grassroots level, this year’s #MyDigitalMaker Fair is being jointly hosted by four other strategic partners in addition to iTrain Kids – Perak’s State Education Department, Jazari Robot Resources, Kedah State Government via Kedah Digital Centre and Petrosains.
Each fair will last for a week to give local communities ample time to access the more than 100 workshops, webinars and tutorials organised for the students and teachers. Exciting prizes and giveaways await the participants as well.
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.
Since its inception in 2017, the flagship event of the #mydigitalmaker Movement has brought awareness about digital innovation and creativity to more than 82,000 participants.
For more information on the #mydigitalmaker Movement, please visit https://mdec.my/mydigitalmaker/ or follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mydigitalmakermovement for latest updates.
