KUALA LUMPUR — Forest Interactive CEO, Johary Mustapha, shares insights on ASEAN market access and international expansion during a two-day MDEC Malaysia Tech Month 2020 event, titled “Reinventing Malaysia’s Digital Economy”.
In a panel session joined by thought leaders such as Sudev Bangah, Managing Director at International Data Corporation (IDC) ASEAN, Indonesia, Lim Chee Siong, Vice President at Huawei Technologies (Malaysia), Tai Yee Meng, Service Director at Dassault Systèmes, Malaysia, and moderated by Khoo Hsu Chuang, Managing Director at KHC Ventures, Johary spoke on his experience growing Forest Interactive internationally and the current path of digital adoption in the ASEAN region.
“With regards to purchases, education is the key when it comes to digital adoption,” revealed Johary. “We have even seen really fast growth in this post-COVID-19 time among people understanding technology and how to use technology to make their purchases. Even people who were used to the traditional way of making purchases over the counter now have their own data and are even more educated in terms of how they want to make payments.”
The discussion was part of an event that showcased digital and technology keynotes and other panel sessions, with leaders such as Alexander Stubb, Former Prime Minister of Finland; Randi Zuckerberg, Former Head of Marketing at Facebook & Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zuckerberg Media; and of course, Surina Shukri, CEO of MDEC.
During the panel session that looked at the digital economy and its trends, infrastructure, and future, Chee Siong also shared that the major pillars for Malaysia to be an ASEAN digital capital is to firstly have a good foundation of digital infrastructure.
This involves a local cloud platform, broadband connectivity, cashless impairment, and basically all the new services that would support and grow the ecosystem. Secondly, we need good talents that know how to run the system, grow the state economy and have a good foundation in it. Thirdly, is our ecosystem, which involves tapping into technology and growing our local economies through local players.
“The workforce in Malaysia is excellent,” said Yee Meng. “The intelligence, passion, and enthusiasm are there but what can make Malaysia an even better country in terms of workforce is the exposure. We should take the advantage to learn and expose ourselves more and that would definitely make Malaysia the top spot in the world.”
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About Forest Interactive (as of November 2020)
Forest Interactive develops scalable mobile platforms that enable mobile operators and content providers to build enriched customer experiences with highly-customizable and easy-to-use platforms. With over a decade of industry experience, Forest Interactive has expanded to include a workforce of 27 nationalities in 17 regional offices and 39 operating countries, providing innovative and comprehensive solutions to over 90 mobile operators and 120 content partners with the capacity to reach 1.3 billion subscribers worldwide.
For more information, please visit forest-interactive.com and follow Forest Interactive on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
Media Contacts:
Forest Interactive Press Bureau
C-7-2, Megan Avenue 2, No. 12 Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, Kuala Lumpur, 50450, Malaysia.
+603 2162 2728
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