The Star Malaysia

Making progress in disruption

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UPSKILL, adapt, or lose out.

Workers who are clueless about disruptive tech are struggling to stay relevant, but those who are upskilling aren’t worried.

On Tuesday, some 50 taxi drivers protested against popular ride-hailing services GrabCar and Uber outside Parliament. They claimed that, nationwide, taxi drivers have lost their source of income because of disruptive tech.

But whether disruptive tech is good or bad depends on perspectiv­e, says equity trader Eric Poh, 39, with a shrug.

A programmer by training, Poh doesn’t think mass retrenchme­nt is on the cards because of disruptive tech; instead, opportunit­ies for people will be shifted to more sophistica­ted positions.

“I met a Grab driver the other day. He’s a college professor with a doctorate and he’s happily earning more thanks to ‘disruptive’ tech. From a consumer’s perspectiv­e, disruptive tech can lead to cheaper solutions, even breaking the monopoly of big companies. So for us, it’s an innovation.”

On the other hand, anything that changes the way establishe­d companies do things is considered disruptive and pesky because it forces change on these companies.

Poh advocates learning programmin­g because it’s a tool that everyone should be familiar with.

Programmer­s, he says, are always in high demand – especially now when almost everything, it seems, is tech-based.

“Because programmin­g is a ‘language’ that allows you to ‘speak to computers’, it’s relevant to all fields. So parents and schools must encourage kids to learn this new living skill”, he believes.

For insurance agent Fatimah Naim, 39, disruptive tech has made doing business tougher. Her sales, fast declining with the rising cost of living, are at greater risk.

According to the Malaysian Employers Federation, many now prefer dealing with the insurance companies directly, making the job of middlemen, or agents, redundant.

“Our slice of the pie has shrunk because of disruptive tech,” Fatimah laments.

Senior graphic designer Kenneth Tan, 34, invested in a 3D printing machine and is experiment­ing with it.

“Disruptive tech pushes us forward but it can also make people lazy. We’re too dependant on tech, to the point that we can’t live without it,” he sighs.

“I’m worried about losing my job because the industry is getting more demanding every day and we have to keep up. It’s stressful. So in my own time, I take courses and, together with some friends, bought a 3D printing machine to improve our job prospects,” he shares.

The ability to do 3D printing, he explains, has changed the way prototypes are made. It allows cheaper moulds to be made. Upskilling allows Tan to create cheap moulds instead of using the existing metal casting method that is more expensive.

But disruptive tech is “just a buzz word”, insists former programmer Hazel Lee, 39.

“Tech, after all, has always been disruptive”, she says.

Thomas Edison and the light bulb, Steve Jobs and the Apple computer, Bill Gates and MS-DOS, and Henry Ford and mass production, are just a few examples.

Lee is now a disruptive tech consultant for a company that advices businesses on becoming more efficient.

“I know of a surgeon and a carpentry teacher who use 3D printing to teach. Robotics may replace labour but workers can be retrained to work the robots.

“Machines are still dumb – for now. When artificial intelligen­ce (AI) is here, then maybe we’ll need to worry about major retrenchme­nts.

“I’d love for my standard operating procedures to be handled by AI so I can sip margaritas by the beach. But that’s not happening any time soon,” Lee says.

Talk of people losing their jobs to disruptive tech irks her because change, she believes, is life’s only constant.

“Ten years ago, people were up in arms over outsourcin­g but the world didn’t end, did it? It’s all about acquiring new problem-solving skills and critical thinking. Human creativity is still key.

“I get it that when manufactur­ing closes down, people lose jobs but if we retrain and redeploy our skills, there will be some job somewhere. It’s up to the government, the company, and the individual to do this.”

The fourth industrial revolution, she says, refers to disruption tech. By 2020, developmen­ts in advanced robotics and autonomous transport, AI and machine learning, advanced materials, biotech and genomics, will result in some jobs disappeari­ng – but, at the same time, new jobs that don’t even exist yet will become commonplac­e.

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