We need to be comprehensive of the mountains of potential data that we have lying all around us. Researchers have used tomb epitaphs, folklore stories and naming conventions from the past — can we challenge ourselves to be as creative and, more so, to digitise our data accordingly?
“New blood” necessarily means going against the status quo. That status quo can be entrenched for a variety of reasons, among which are the types of bonds developed since teenage-hood, forged in boarding schools across the nation.
It is not enough for policymakers to announce important ambitions and policy promises, we need all of Malaysia’s collective brain — our institutions, our cultural norms — to want to change as well. And that can be difficult.
Power distance and our “VIP culture”, which may have worked in different instances in the past or indeed in the present for a given objective, is unlikely to be conducive to future economic development objectives
Technology need not be predestined, and technology policy is something policymakers can influence. Governments can and should shape the kinds of digital technology they believe their countries can adopt and deploy.
How many “Chosen Ones” have we missed simply because we do not provide them with the opportunities to maximise their potential?
When it comes to competition, if Malaysia’s largest firms primarily compete among themselves for an “island-type” market size, how productive can they actually be?
Questioning the wisdom and the authority of the past is how progress progresses. We will not achieve a true merdeka of self-determination for our country if we, at the societal level, do not ourselves possess a merdeka of our spirits.
Our National Recovery Plan must chart a path towards a more sustainable and inclusive prosperity. We must be ambitious, bold and imaginative. But most of all, we have to be patient.
Economic development will have occasional failures as by-products of its progress. The optimal “experimental failure” level in a country is non-zero.