Public sector managed to leverage on technology to cope with Covid-19 pandemic, says chief secretary to govt

PUTRAJAYA, Nov 30 — Malaysia had capitalised on the use of technology by developing the MySejahtera application, via strategic cooperation among government agencies, as a monitoring tool during the Covid-19 pandemic, said Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohd Zuki Ali.

He said the MySejahtera application was developed through collaboration with the National Security Council (MKN), Ministry of Health (MoH), the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti) and the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu).

“Up to Nov 11, MySejahtera has recorded a total of 23.5 million users,” he said in his speech at the Challenge on Innovation and Problem Solving through Technology Advancement (Chipta) 2020 winners announcement ceremony held virtually today.

Mohd Zuki said the movement control order (MCO) implemented following the pandemic had also changed work routines, especially among civil servants, and several applications had been developed to ensure that work could be carried out as usual and services not affected.

Among them is the ‘Sistem Pemantauan Operasi Tugas Saya’ (SPOT-Me) which serves to record sign in and sign off-hours as well as used as a task reporting system, he said. 

 “The same applies for meetings or discussions held via teleconferencing,” said Mohd Zuki.

For the people’s convenience, he said the Online Appointment System (STO) developed by the Immigration Department was first used on May 8, 2020, and went on to be successfully used in crowd management, as required by standard operating procedures (SOPs) set to contain the pandemic. 

Mohd Zuki said to promote innovation among society, Mampu organised Chipta 2020 to create opportunities to collaborate and increase digital technology-based products.

“Products and applications through the Chipta program are expected to have a significant impact and will be of high value and beneficial to various parties, especially when applying the new norms,” he said. 

Chipta 2020, themed “Enabling Innovation for New Norm and Better Future”, attracted 155 teams of which 10 teams were selected from each category to develop mobile applications, the final product of the competition, with the final evaluation to held on Oct 13 via teleconference. 

Chipta 2020 had four categories, namely Public Sector, Institutions of Higher Learning, Secondary Schools and Public/Industries with a total prize pool of RM66,000.

The SMART PPM Group from the Department of Minerals and Geosciences Malaysia won the Public Sector category through the development of MyQDMi (Malaysia Quarry Dust Monitoring Artificial Intelligence) application with the concept of online mapping to help the public and departments obtain information related to air pollution (dust) in quarries nationwide.

TheFourQuadrant Group from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) which created the GigAssist application that provides a job analytics platform and consolidates job openings information in the gig economic sector for job seekers, industry players and the government, won the IPT category.

As for secondary schools, the BAZ App team from SMK Aminuddin Baki Kuala Lumpur emerged winners with its Mobile Trainer application, while the Public /Industries category was won by the Lestari group for its Lestari application. — Bernama