Realising the importance of developing leadership competencies in empowering young individuals to be resilient, agile, and adaptable, Leaderonomics Community & the MAD (Make A Difference) Movement, a social enterprise focused on leadership development is launching its 2022 Community Survey.
The survey, with the theme of “Digital Readiness” seeks to gain deeper insights from various stakeholders. The findings will be used to build and determine the direction of its programmes, ensuring that they will be geared and highly targeted towards intentional building of future leaders in this new age and context.
“Leaderonomics Community and the MAD Movement have transformed numerous youth and young adults into change agents and empowered leaders,” says Roshan Thiran, the leader of Leaderonomics Community and the MAD Movement.
“It is key for these youth to understand the context of our age. Digital networks are transforming the way we learn, collaborate and connect. Our youth need to learn not only how to leverage and use these technologies but also how to lead, influence and drive change in communities in these differentiated ways. We are finding new ways to enable, empower and upskill these youth through virtual interactions, digital tools like Necole and driving digital camps and initiatives,” he adds.
As the Malaysian government pursues to lay foundations for digital transformation nationwide through the MyDigital initiative, Leaderonomics Community & the MAD Movement aims to go beyond digital literacy, especially in light of the need to continually transform young people.
Throughout these efforts, a question arises, “Are our youths ready for this transformation?”. The challenges that surround digital transformation include:
Lack of access to devices — MCMC identified 30.1% of survey respondents under this category in the year 2020
Lack of reliable internet connection — According to The World Bank, 89.6% of Malaysians have access to internet but a closer look indicate that only 10.4 out of 100 individuals have a reliable connection through fixed broadband in 2020
Limited exposure to develop digital skills — PwC’s ‘Hopes and Fears Survey 2021’ reported that 78% of Malaysians lacked access to technology resulting in restrictions to developing skills
In order to ensure that young individuals are able to cope with the turbulent changes ahead, it is important that they not only have access to the tools and the skills, but also have the ability to utilise the available resources in achieving productive outcomes.
Since 2008, Leaderonomics Community and its “MAD Movement” initiative has been involved in impacting close to 30,000 youths across the different states in Malaysia through partnering with esteemed organisations such as ECM Libra Foundation, Hap Seng, Linde, PROLINTAS, Maybank and many others firms committed to building Malaysia and growing its people. Through the years, our leadership content and delivery methods have been adapted to address the changing needs of the youths — majority of which are from B40 communities.
