MEETING the needs of the government’s agenda to accelerate the creation of a national technologically talented workforce – that’s what Akademi GA hopes to achieve by bringing in the renowned General Assembly (GA) courses to Malaysia.
The training provider was established to provide skills transformation training meant to address the need for talent with digital skills.
Based on figures from the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), Malaysia is expected to have 1.2 million jobs needing digital skills in 2025 and the number is expected to rise to three million by 2030.
To achieve these numbers though, more tech companies need to set up office here. There has been a big shift from equipment-based to software and people skill companies.
Akademi GA director Rouvin Thiruchelvam said having a ready pool of talent equipped with digital skills is a means to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) from global icons to the country.
“We have all these policies in place to attract FDI into Malaysia and if you think about the companies that will come here to hire people in the masses, it will be companies that are growing rapidly.”
These companies, he added, are more likely to open offices locally if the country already has a ready source of talent for them to tap into.
In other words, they do not need to invest in training their fresh hires but rather absorb skilled employees immediately upon starting business here.
Today, software is feeding the world and employees with tech skills are needed to drive not only tech companies, but industries across the board.
Having a GA course attached to your resume means having your skills recognised globally, said Thiruchelvam.
GA is a world leader in digital skills training with over 40% of Fortune 100 companies listed as clients and 7,000 hiring partners worldwide.
The training company, set up about a decade ago, has had 100,000 individuals enrolled in their full-time and part-time courses.
They’ve also had more than 500,000 participants attend their training workshops, bootcamps and immersive programmes all over the world.
Gaining access to quality education is key, said Thiruchelvam.
Talents, he said, are aware about the need for tech skills but do not know where or how to gain these skills.
“Our goal is to solve business problems in the modern economy.
“We enable skills-based transformation by using the best content available to deliver an outcome.”
“Digital transformation is expensive but you have to look at the return on investment in terms of your career.
“If you have the right attitude of wanting to succeed in the modern economy and you see an outcome for you, you will be motivated to gain new skills,” said Thiruchelvam.
Digital transformation, he said, is more than just about having an app or a software.
“It’s also being able to see, at every stage of the business, how to intervene using your tech knowledge. It is about levelling up.”
