Science Advisor and GSIAC Joint Secretary, Zakri Abdul Hamid

On May 17, 2011 the inaugural meeting of the Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council (GSIAC) for Malaysia was chaired by Prime Minister Najib Razak at the premises of the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS).

A brainchild of the Prime Minister, the GSIAC was mooted arising from Malaysia’s positive experiences in utilizing expert advice from the private sector and academia to shape her socio-economic development plans. What is unique for the GSIAC is the depth and breadth of its membership which is both multidisciplinary and multisectoral in nature.

GSIAC Joint Secretary, NYAS President, Ellis Rubenstein

The council includes 25 renowned international figures of economics, business, science and technology volunteering to help Malaysians achieve an average income level of $15,000 in an environmentally-sustainable way helping, in other words, to light the nation’s path to a green, high-income economy.

A developed country is popularly considered to have an average national per capita income of $15,000 or more.  Other definitions combine national income with additional measures such as life expectancy (in Malaysia’s case, 73.5 years) and education (literacy rate in Malaysia: 88.7% of its 28 million people).  Regardless of the criteria used, fewer than 20% of the world’s 235 countries are deemed “developed.”

The Prime Minister says the Council’s advice and active partnership will help support the country’s pursuit of several strategic initiatives embodied in her “New Economic Model” to become a developed country by 2020.

Three ‘quick-wins’ projects are proposed. First is the creation of a model “smart city” and “smart village,” in which an integrated system of information and other technologies help maximize the efficiency of a community’s resource use, minimize waste, add to the citizen’s well-being, and even drive the economy by spawning small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).The aim is to improve everything from energy use, health care, education, traffic and shopping by doing it “smarter” with the help of ICT (information and communications technologies).

Already a number of private concerns in Malaysia have shown an interest in being involved in the project.  The NYAS can help by identifying lessons to be learned from relevant smart cities programs and activities in other places and by linking leading global firms into these activities.

In the case of smart villages, a parallel process of driving economic and social gain in rural areas will begin with the provision of fundamental Internet technology but could be transformational through the use of wireless access combined with novel health, learning, and economic applications built around cell phones.

The second project targets the utilization of oil palm biomass. Each year the oil palm industry in Malaysia generates more than 30 million tonnes of biomass in the forms of empty fruit bunches, oil palm trunks and oil palm fronds. Some of this biomass has already been used for commercial products such as pulp and paper, medium density fibreboard and automotive components.

In addition, of increasing interest is the potential of oil palm biomass to be the feedstock raw materials to the chemical and biochemical industry. The cellulose component can be hydrolyzed to yield glucose from which ethanol, citric acid, butanal and other single cell protein can be obtained through chemical and microbiological transformation. Hemicelluloses can yield pentoses especially xylose which upon hydrolysis can be converted to xytitol, furfural, furan, resins and furfuryl alcohol. The lignin fraction of oil palm biomass is a potential source of phenolic resins.

The above intermediates open up a whole new spectrum of opportunities in pharmaceuticals, supplements and potential health care products. Some of the biggest palm oil companies in Malaysia are currently in discussion with several partners overseas to forge such a venture under the aegis of the GSIAC.

The third project is developing the human skills needed to eventually support the advanced technologies exemplified above. There are now several centres of excellence in our local universities that could be linked to related centres in North America with the view of the latter strengthening the capabilities of the former. Moreover, Malaysia’s centres of excellence should be interlinked to achieve unprecedented synergies so that the whole of Malaysia’s talent pool is greater than the sum of its parts.

“Malaysia’s ambitious goal is to simultaneously reduce poverty and achieve a Green Economy. We see science and technology innovation as key to achieving that goal, guided by the advice and active support of some of the world’s most distinguished entrepreneurial, scientific and economic experts,” says Najib.

The Council comprises 42 members – 17 from Malaysia and 25 international members from China, India, Russia, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, the UK and the USA.

The members from Malaysia include four cabinet ministers and leading members from the corporate sector. President Obama’s Science Envoy to Malaysia, Rita Colwell, famed American economist Jeffrey Sachs, Kiyoshi Kurokawa, former Science Adviser to the Japanese Prime Minister, two Nobel laureates, Steve Forbes of Forbes Media, and Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are among the international members.

Beyond providing a new international source of strategic advice to fuel Malaysia’s drive to high-income status via competitive science and technology innovation and commercialization, the council will actively help the country increase foreign trade and investment.

The Science Adviser to the Prime Minister and Ellis Rubinstein, NYAS President and Chief Executive Officer, serve as Joint Secretaries of the Council and will act as the implementers of the listed projects. Says Rubinstein: “With an increasingly well-educated population, existing high-tech infrastructure and progressive leadership, Malaysia offers a perfect laboratory in which to potentially demonstrate how a developing country can transition to a high-income economy in an ecologically-sensitive manner.  The opportunity has therefore attracted the active interest of some of the world’s foremost business experts and scientists.  The Academy is interested in producing solid, meaningful results that will advance the well-being of Malaysians.”

Indeed, the formation of the GSIAC is in itself an innovation. Often times, countries would seek out, at great expense, the advice of top-flight consulting companies or individuals to help them chart out their national economic strategies and it is not uncommon for these reports to be left on the shelves.

The GSIAC is different and unique. It is a dynamic and interactive process involving an enlightening dialogue between the prime minister of a country and some of the best minds in science, economics and business that the world can offer. And once opportunities are identified, this Council will employ the staff members of MIGHT and The New York Academy of Sciences to act as catalytic entities on the ground to drive transformational initiatives.

The writer is Science Adviser to the Prime Minister of Malaysia

–
Members of Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council are:

CHAIRMAN

The Honourable Dato’ Sri Mohd. Najib Tun Abdul Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia

JOINT SECRETARIES

Mr. Ellis Rubinstein, President & CEO, New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS).
YBhg. Prof. Emeritus Dato’ Dr. Zakri Abdul Hamid, Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

INTERNATIONAL MEMBERS

Dr Rita Colwell, US Special Science Envoy to South Asia and Southeast Asia
Ron Cohen, President & Chief Executive Office , Accorda Therapeutics
Dr. A. A. (Aalt) Dijkhuizen, Chairman, Executive Board, Wageningen University and Research Centre
Dr. Michael Crow, President, Arizona State University
Dr. Mikael Dolsten, President, Worldwide Research and Development and Senior Vice President, Pfizer Inc
Dr. Paul Horn, Senior Vice Provost for Research, New York University, former Senior Vice President & Executive Director of Research, IBM
Hon. Jerry MacArthur Hultin, President, Polytechnic Institute of New York University
Jiang Mian Heng, Vice President, Chinese Academy of Sciences; President, Shanghai Branch of CAS
Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa, Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, former Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan
Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, Director General, The Energy Research Institute (TERI), New Delhi, Chair IPCC
The Hon. Ilya Ponomarev, Member, DUMA of Russia, Chair, DUMA High Technology Committee
Dr. Richard Roberts, Nobel Laureate, Chief Scientific Officer, New England Biolabs
Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations
Dr. Annalee Saxenian, Dean and Professor, School of Information, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Franklin Schuling, Vice President Philips Research and Head of Philips Research North America
Dr. Anthony J. Sinskey, Prof. of Biology & Health Sciences & Technology, M.I.T.
Dr. Vivek Wadhwa, Senior Research Associate, Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, Executive In Residence/Adjunct Professor, Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, and Visiting Scholar, School of Information, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Torsten Wiesel, Nobel Laureate, President Emeritus, Rockefeller University, Chairman Emeritus, The New York Academy of Sciences
Dr. Roger Wyse, Managing Director, Burrill & Co.
Dr. Nancy Zimpher, Chancellor, The State University of New York
Sir Peter Williams, Vice President, Royal Society, United Kingdom
Dr June Seung Lee, President, Korea Institute of Science & Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
Professor William F. Miller, Herbert Hoover Professor of Public & Private, Emeritus Professor of Computer Science Stanford University, former President & CEO of SRI International
Brian Mefford, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Connected Nation, Inc
Steve Forbes, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Forbes Media.

MALAYSIAN MEMBERS

YB Dato’ Sri Peter Chin Fah Kui, Minister of Energy, Green Technology & Water
YB Datuk Seri Dr. Maximus Johnity Ongkili, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation
YB Dato’ Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, Minister of Higher Education
YB Dato’ Sri Anifah Hj Aman, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Malaysia
H.E.Dato’ Sri Jamaludin Jarjis, Ambassador of Malaysia to the United States
YBhg Tan Sri Dr. Ahmad Tajuddin Ali, President, Academy of Sciences of Malaysia
YBhg Tan Sri Dato’ Azman Bin Hj. Mokhtar, Managing Director, Khazanah Nasional
YBhg Dato’ Shamsul Azhar Abbas, President and Chief Executive Officer, Petronas
YBhg Dato’ Mohd Bakke Salleh, President and Group Chief Executive, Sime Darby
YBhg. Dato’ Sabri Ahmad, Group Managing Director, Felda Holdings Bhd.

HEADS OF JOINT SECRETARIAT

Mr. Mohd Yusoff Sulaiman, President and Chief Executive Officer, MIGHT
Dr. Karin Pavese, Vice President for Innovation & Sustainability, NYAS

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS

YBhg. Dato’ Madinah Binti Mohamad, Secretary General, Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovation
YBhg. Datuk Loo Took Gee, Secretary General, Ministry of Energy, Green Technology & Water
YBhg. Datuk Ab. Rahim Bin Md. Noor, Secretary General, Minister of Higher Education
Mr. Mohd Yusoff Sulaiman, President and CEO, Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT)
Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, Chief Executive Officer, Multimedia Development Corporation (MDEC)
Dato’ Iskandar Mizal Mahmood, Chief Executive Officer, Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation
Dato’ Dr. Kamal Jit Singh, Chief Executive Officer, Malaysia Innovation Agency
Dato’ Ir. Lee Yee Cheong, Chairman, Governing Board of the International Science, Technology and Innovation Centre (ISTIC), for South-South Cooperation under the Auspices of UNESCO.

• Share