In 2019, Cyberview Sdn Bhd was mandated by the government to develop Cyberjaya and further strengthen its technology ecosystem. Hence, as tech hub developer, Cyberview unveiled a new masterplan for the city – aimed at optimising the city’s potential as a tech investment destination. Through this masterplan, the city is geographically divided into four distinct zones: a Global Business District in the North, Talent and Community in the West, Commerce in Downtown and Innovation in the South. All four districts come together with the singular goal of driving the development of Cyberjaya towards a vibrant Global Tech Hub.
North Cyberjaya will be the “Global Business District” that encourages the manifestation of smart city solutions. Two MRT stations for the Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya line are currently in development and expected to be operational by January 2023. The provisions of these stations will certainly enhance connectivity into Cyberjaya and spur economic and social activities in this area.
West Cyberjaya will be known as the center for “Nurturing Talent for Tech Hub”. It is focused on developments that encourage industry-academia collaborations to produce skilled talent. This area will also feature the development of community-centric infrastructure with greater emphasis on liveability.According toa 2018 study by McKinsey, it was revealed that technology implemented in a city environment can improve the quality of life of its community of up to 30 percent. Cyberview will be focusing on this aspect, with innovation as the way forward in ensuring optimal experienced by the Cyberjaya community.
Downtown Cyberjaya will be the “Thriving Commerce District” that is a centre for start-ups and tech companies to deploy innovative solutions in a real-life commercial setting. For example, this area has seen the roll-out and successful adoption of the cashless initiative. As of today, 96.6% per cent of merchants in Cyberjaya are cashless-enabled, based on a survey conducted in four business areas here. This is a testament of Cyberview’s efforts in driving the cashless society proposition.
South Cyberjaya will be marked as the “Innovation District” that is dedicated to driving innovation, and will be anchored by three tech clusters identified as Cyberjaya’s future pillars of growth. These clusters are the Smart Mobility, Smart Healthcare, and Digital Creative clusters, each with its own unique propositions and potentials to contribute to Malaysia’s push for digital economy.
This area will see the creation of entire tech value chains supported by both foreign investors as well as local SMEs and startups. It will be a showpiece of an integrated innovation ecosystem, whereby facilities and supporting environment components are interconnected and shared.
Smart Mobility
Cyberview recognizes a huge growth potential in this industry and is supporting it by strengthening existing ecosystem components, incentivising both FDIs and DDIs within this space into Cyberjaya, and offering the entire city as a ‘living lab’ in which smart mobility solutions can be tested and simulated in a safe and controlled environment.
Key ecosystem components recently introduced to systematically establish a regulatory sandbox for mobility solutions and moving towards commercialisation are the Cyberjaya Drone Testing Zone and the Cyberjaya Malaysia Autonomous Vehicle (MyAV) Testing Route – both under the purview of Cyberview’s subsidiary, Futurise. These are initiatives under the National Regulatory Sandbox (NRS) which aims to expedite progressive and anticipatory regulatory intervention to enable commercialisation of innovation and technology solutions.
The Cyberjaya Malaysia Autonomous Vehicle (MyAV) Testing Route is a significant milestone for the city’s tech ecosystem as it is the first to be established in Malaysia. eMoovit Technology Sdn Bhd (eMoovit) under MooVita group is the first company to receive the approval to use the route for the testing of their autonomous car. Since January 2021, the test loop has been used on an average of three times a week, with a total AV testing distance of 480km to date. Development of this testing route brings in the creation of 200 to 250 potential high-skilled jobs in the areas of robotics and electrical engineering, programming, machine learning, AI and traditional automotive engineering, amongst others.
Meanwhile, the presence of key industry players provides a catalytic factor with companies such as the Aerodyne Group establishing its corporate office in Cyberjaya. Aerodyne is a leading multinational technology company specializing in drone services and data management in the field of DT3 (Drone Technology, Data Technology & Digital Transformation). Currently, ranked 2nd globally, with presence in 35 countries, Aerodyne helps customers manage critical asset infrastructure more effectively through drone tech solutions. Its CEO, Kamarul A Muhamed, won the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2020 Malaysia award.
Smart Healthcare
There certainly is vast untapped potential in smart healthcare, especially with technology and innovation having to play a greater role in advancing healthcare by incorporating elements of Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data. This is evident in the healthcare crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cyberview began looking into the smart healthcare space several years ago, particularly through the Cyberview Living Lab Accelerator (CLLA) programme. Through this programme that has seen 85 startups successfully nurtured across various tech spectrum such as fintech, prop tech and edu tech. In the space of smart healthcare, the CLLA programme has brought to market several notable startups such as MedKad, Vita and TechCare Innovation to name a few.
To feed the tech ecosystem here, and particularly the healthcare industry, Cyberjaya has a funnel of talent provided by institutes of higher learnings (IHLs) such as the University of Cyberjaya that focuses in the areas of medicine, pharmaceutical sciences and psychology among others.
Our maturing community infrastructure here too supports the growth of this area with Hospital Cyberjaya which has been successfully completed for the Ministry of Health and another private hospital slated as an upcoming development set to serve the community.
Apart from these, Cyberjaya is also home for both local and foreign companies in this space, such as CyroCord – a biotechnology company which has been in Cyberjaya for the last 18 years and Hematogenix from the United States that focuses on medical research.
Digital Creative
Besides its tech DNA, Cyberjaya is also known for its creative community, with a number of homegrown talent producing globally-recognised brand names and IPs for various markets around the world such as, Monsta (BoBoiBoy), WAU Animation Sdn Bhd (Ejen Ali), Digital Durian Bhd (Didi & Friends, Omar & Hana), and Giggle Garage.
This industry is decades in the making, with creators and talents of these brand names, having graduated from Cyberjaya’s first university, the Multimedia University (MMU). The university continues to be a critical cog to Cyberview’s vision for the digital creative cluster, supplying much-needed local talent to this burgeoning industry.
Working with talent, is a strategic move by Cyberview with programmes for young students in the areas of creative and STEM being offered through the Digital Maker Hub (DMH), in collaboration with MDEC and operationalised by Chumbaka and Creative Sandbox. It is a platform that encourages digital education for students (including digital creative such as animation) and is part of Cyberview’s Living Lab Talent initiative.
The Cyberjaya Masterplan is the impetus put in place to drive the city further towards the vision of a Global Technology Hub and the preferred tech investment location for both foreign and local tech players. It is expected to contribute up to RM250 billion in GDP, create 87,000 jobs with the participation of 1,200 companies by 2045.
