Innovation the keyword in trip to Silicon Valley

Another eye-opening day for Najib as he meets Facebook’s CEO and pays Google a visit

IT was another eye-opening day for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in Silicon Valley with a meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a visit to Google.

Najib, who is on a three-day working visit to Silicon Valley, was at Facebook’s head office in Menlo Park besides making a trip to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View.

“The experience is very, very interesting, an eye-opener on not only products but also the lifestyle, especially the culture of innovation.

“How do we promote the culture of innovation? It’s not about the hardware, it’s not about the regulations and incentives but about the way of life and the culture of innovation which is important because that’s the underpinning for innovation to really succeed,” he told the Malaysian media.

Najib said that during his visit to Facebook, they had expressed willingness to work with the Malaysian Government on its efforts to further engage the people to learn about what people wanted.

The offer by Facebook would also enable the Government to inform the people on its latest policies.

Malaysia has among the biggest number of FB users in the world, ranking at No. 18 with almost 13 million users.

Najib’s three-hour visit to Google saw the Prime Minister trying out the latest innovative products, including Google glass and Google driverless car.

Google glass is a wearable computer with an optical head mounted display that can communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands.

The two visits on Tuesday were part of a series of high-level discussions and demonstrations for the Prime Minister’s “experiential visit” to Silicon Valley organised by the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC).

MDeC is the driver of Malaysia’s Digital Economy Initiative, Digital Malaysia and the National ICT Initiative, MSC Malaysia.

The Prime Minister will also be attending the United Nations general assembly in New York.

At another press conference after opening the Bio-International Advisory Panel Meeting 2013 here, Najib said bioeconomy had become a game-changer for Malaysia to become a high income nation.

“To date, Biotech Corp has managed to secure approved investments of US$4.5bil (RM13.8bil), which is 53% above the Phase 2 target of US$3bil (RM9bil),” Bernama was quoted as saying.

Najib said the biotechnology industry had induced more than 80,000 direct and indirect employment opportunities.