How Aerodyne Made the MSC & Cyberjaya Dream a Reality
This Malaysian-founded technology company is the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle to accomplish the nation’s technology initiatives.
The Malaysian tech industry has come a long way since the inception of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in 1996 and Cyberjaya in 1997.
I first encountered Aerodyne when I was attached to Cyberview Sdn Bhd, the government-owned company under the Ministry of Finance that is responsible to develop Cyberjaya as a global technology hub.
The Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) is 25 years old this year and I personally can’t imagine Malaysia without the MSC or Cyberjaya. They’re an integral part of our country’s development.
I always like to look back, evaluate and reflect on how far we’ve come. Just like Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple once said:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”
During the launch of the MSC in 1996 by our then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad gave a visionary speech that most people probably weren’t able to visualise or understand then.
We are talking about changing the way we live and work within the MSC.
However, we now get to experience everything that was predicted in 1996. We live in a connected world, our meetings are done via Zoom, we pay with our smartphones, we ride in strangers’ cars using Grab, we shop online, movies are streamed via Netflix and we are spoilt for choice with food delivery options.
Below are the key points that I extracted from the Prime Minister’s speech and based on my observation, Aerodyne, a Malaysian-founded technology company based in Cyberjaya, is very well aligned with whatever was envisioned before.
Global ‘test-bed’ for the new roles of Government, new cyber laws and guarantees, collaborations between Government and companies, companies and companies, and applications of new technologies
Aerodyne is one of the tech companies that are actively working directly with the government and supporting the government in its effort to do digital transformation. It’s using Cyberjaya and the MSC as test-bed for drone technology, with the support from other agencies such as MaGIC, Cybervivew, Futurise, MDEC and MOSTI.
We are taking a single-minded approach to developing the country using the new tools offered by the Information Age.
Malaysia being a developing country where Aerodyne was founded, is delivering solutions to its global clients using drone technology and data technology.
The MSC will be the R&D centre for the information-based industries, to develop new codes of ethics in a shrunken world when everyone is a neighbour to everyone else, where we have to live with each other without unnecessary tension and conflicts.
Aerodyne is actively researching and developing the next generation drone and data technology and will disrupt and transform more industries in the years ahead.
There will be ample land to be developed especially for the multimedia industry and other companies using leading-edge information infrastructure to provide products and services to their clients. The entire area will be served by a 2.5–10GB, 100 percent digital fiberoptic network that will directly link the MSC with ASEAN, Japan, U.S. and Europe.
With Cyberjaya’s superior network infrastructure, Aerodyne has become a global data processing centre for its customers and directly linked to some of the major data centres based in Cyberjaya and ASEAN.
Cyberjaya will be located in West Putrajaya and provide top quality business facilities, residential housing, leisure and recreation facilities, and state of the art supporting infrastructure. It will support a working population of approximately 150,000 and a living population of over 100,000.
Since Aerodyne relocated its global HQ in 2019, many of its staff, also known as ‘AeroRangers’ have made Cyberjaya their homes.
Component manufacturing can then be done in China, on machines programmed from Japan, with software written in India, and financing coming from the Labuan IOFC. The MSC is a multicultural ‘web’ of mutually dependent International and Malaysian companies collaborating to deliver new products and services to customers across an economically vibrant Asia and the world.
Global drone technology companies such as DJI from China, Skydio from USA, Voliro from Switzerland, ACSL from Japan and many more are working with Aerodyne to co-develop solutions for their customers worldwide.
Malaysian companies are already working with world-class international companies and technology transfer is taking place because each company will really be adding value to the product.
Aerodyne’s most recent collaboration is with a drone tech company from Japan, whereby the company is testing their newly developed drones right here in Malaysia. This technology would soon be used in other regions around the world.
The MSC having hundreds of large and small companies working collaboratively with one another and with partners across Asia. Some of these companies will certainly be today’s leaders.
Aerodyne has been partnering with local and global companies to develop world-class solutions for its customers. If you haven’t heard, Aerodyne was ranked the world’s №1 drone service provider by Drone Industry Insights of Germany just about two weeks ago.
Hopefully, a few of tomorrow’s leaders will be from Malaysia with new products and services in the MSC. The MSC will be a global community living at the leading edge of the Information Society.
Aerodyne is clearly the global leader in the industry led by technopreneur Kamarul A Muhamed.
Aerodyne was founded in 2014 by Kamarul who recently won ‘EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020’, ‘EY Technology Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020 Malaysia’ as well as ‘SEBA Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020’.
The MSC will become a collaborative cluster of universities and corporate R&D centres, using distance learning to produce world-class graduates and next-generation innovations.
Aerodyne is actively collaborating with local and foreign universities and has been allocating funds for drone-based R&D and internship programs. The company is also working closely with Young Malaysian Engineers (YME), a student-run organisation to empower Malaysian Youth in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
The MSC should become a multimedia customer service hub leveraging Malaysia’s unique multicultural links to provide electronic publishing, content localisation, telemarketing and remote customer care to a market of 2.5 billion people.
Aerodyne with its 11 regional headquarters and operations in 35 countries has 560 people and counting. The company’s staff speak 27 different languages and serving customers from all corners of the world.
Looking back, Aerodyne is the icing on top of the MSC and other government initiatives. With Malaysia’s growing and maturing tech ecosystem, it is evident that Malaysian tech firms are now recognised as global players. I hope to see more success stories will come out from Malaysia.
It’s become more crucial for all the different stakeholders to be working closely together to drive the nation’s aspiration to leverage on science and technology to become a fully developed and prosperous country.
Richard Ker is the VP of Ecosystem and Partnership at Aerodyne. The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of Aerodyne.
