Google launches new initiatives to equip Malaysian youth with AI-focused, future-ready skills

KUALA LUMPUR: Technology giant Google yesterday announced two initiatives to equip Malaysian youth with future-ready skills focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and to enhance public service delivery with the help of cloudnative, AI-driven productivity tools, a move in alignment with Malaysia’s Madani Economy Framework.

Google said the first initiative involves collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) to upskill local youth from diverse backgrounds by providing 161 public universities, polytechnics, and community colleges in Malaysia with up to 500 Google Career Certificate scholarships each until the end of 2024.

“Designed by Google experts, the nine Google Career Certificates span fields like cybersecurity, data analytics, and IT support. They can be completed within three to six months through flexible, selfpaced online training, with no prior experience required,” Google said in a statement.

This strategic initiative with MOHE marks a significant expansion of Gemilang, the digital training programme launched by Google in 2022 to help more Malaysians acquire digital skills – at no cost – for jobs in highdemand technology fields, it added.

Since its launch, Gemilang has already provided 31,000 Google Career Certificate scholarships to benefit individuals in Malaysia, with 80 per cent of certificate graduates reporting a positive career outcome, such as a new job, promotion, or salary raise within six months of completion.

Meanwhile, the second initiative involves Jabatan Digital Negara to embark on a strategic initiative to deploy Google Workspace for 445,000 public officers.

The move would, for instance, help public officers accelerate policy development, budget planning, and public consultations by allowing them to work together on tasks without switching between tools, easily find information across internal document repositories using Google-quality search capabilities, and leverage other embedded AI tools to streamline workflows and facilitate data-driven decisionmaking.

Google Workspace brings together the AI-powered applications used by over three billion users such as Gmail, Chat, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Meet into a single integrated workspace, with built-in enterprise grade access management, device management, data protection, and data encryption. — Bernama