“What’s Hot in 2009” - A 5-minute window

Simply put, it’s not all gloom and doom. An economist, I’m not. Though the general feeling among participants during the ‘What’s Hot in 2009’ Dialogue is not particularly optimistic about the economy, but I do believe most come away feeling good about technology. Short and sweet, now that’s how I would describe the forum which was organised by CRADLE held at the swanky Plug and Play Centre in Mid Valley.

The panellists are well-versed in their own fields and presented their cases rather convincingly to the packed room. Due to the overwhelming response, partitions had to be pulled open as more people came in droves. Registration at the lobby took quite a while though since there was a long queue when I arrived at 10am but most of the participants seemed undeterred by this.

The session started off with an Opening Speech by the CEO of Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd Nazrin Hassan. Among other things, he said there will still be domestic growth despite the ‘gloom and doom’ of the global economic downturn. We should not really take heed of what the “prophets of doom” (the economists) may say about the economy this year as they used to make wrong presumptions in the past. Predictions of the worse scenario will always be present but may not necessarily be true. Sometime, people do tend to overestimate the problem.

Mohamad Hazani Hassan of Kumpulan Modal Perdana pointedly said 2009 is not going to be a good year. What may be ‘hot’ to others may not be ‘hot’ for the VCs. VCs generally look into technology transfer and technopreneurs should take into consideration issues like Green Tech, Cloud Computing and Mobilization. Currently, his company is looking for people or partners who are willing to work with their overseas companies. Rather unabashed, he said many VCs do not even look at Start Ups. But later to soften his tone, Hazani stressed technopreneurs should be the ones to make and determine what’s hot and what’s not, do not worry about others creating ‘what’s hot’. Excellent point, indeed. Most importantly, do not wait for others or listen to people, just do what you think should be done.

Above all, and upsurge of entrepreneurship is what will be seen in 2009 as people will see more opportunities to start building on solutions and services. Peter Tam of Microsoft agrees that 2009 will definitely going to be a tough year for everybody. The focuses will be more on cost savings and improving productivity. Companies need to find a niche area. Look for ‘pain’ points of customers ie: create the pain. Today, it is all about user experience.

The 3rd panelist’s points are rather disjointed as hardly anyone could listen to what he was saying as the microphone started acting up. Prof Zainul Faziruddin of USM touched on the surface issues on healthcare and climate change. Other than that, nothing much can be gathered from his points as he was rather incomprehensible.

Touching more on reality that bites, Hasnul Nazrin from MDeC said we should look into the micro economic factors. We are at the point of reinvention. There will be companies dying off. That is why; foremost important within MDeC is to look for sustainability in companies.

2 primary issues: Sustainability and Reinvention.

The recently announced Government Stimulus Package is more towards sustaining companies and developing competence so we are able to move to new markets. Industries should provide input to government to enable a better restructuring of intervention mechanism.

Sharil Tarmizi of MCMC is looking for help to bridge the gap between traditional broadcasting and towards creating an exciting market. As we all may have heard this before, Malaysians are a creative bunch; just that we do not believe in ourselves. Big corporations like Astro, Celcom and others are depending on technopreneurs for creative content. However, he forewarns ‘Good innovators are not necessarily good technopreneurs’. Go figure! The best time to innovate is during tough times. It seems what we desire most is what we are best in doing (technopreneurs should continue to create, regardless the doom & gloom of economic outlook). Agree. Like totally.