KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is a fine example of a country that has embraced information technology, and it is gaining ground as an ICT hub 12 years after MSC Malaysia came into being.

MSC Malaysia International Advisory Panel (IAP) members also praised the government's role in promoting information technology.

Diana Lady Dougan, chairman of Cyber Century, said a case in point was the participation of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in the day-long IAP meeting and the government's commitment to e-government initiatives.

Panel members also dismissed suggestions that Cyberjaya was not sufficiently promoted internationally.

Dr John Sage, vice-president of Sun Microsystems Inc, said the fact that the 16th WITSA World Congress on Information Technology is being held in Malaysia is publicity in itself.
"The fact that the world congress will bring some 3,000 delegates from all over the world, simply means that they will go back and tell people about what they've seen in Malaysia," he said.

Stephen McGuckin, managing director (IT Services) of DHL, said Cyberjaya was just palm trees 10 year ago, and now it has has world-class operations.

"We opened our centre here in 2000/2001, and since then we've only had one 45-minute power outage. Our centre is run and managed by Malaysians. Less then 10 per cent of the staff are expatriates."

Professor William Miller from Stanford University said California's Silicon Valley existed for 80 years before it had world-class companies.

The prime minister said while development of Cyberjaya would continue, the government would create more cybercities and cybercentres in the country.

After the meeting, Abdullah witnessed the exchange of documents between TTTEC Malay-sia, a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based TeleTech Holdings Inc, and Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) on TTTEC's rollout of delivery centres nationwide, to create more than 10,000 jobs in 10 years.

He also witnessed the exchange of documents between AIG and MDeC on AIG Software International Sdn Bhd's plans to establish a global shared services centre and data centre in Cyberjaya.