SMEs with a total Government commitment of RM 55 million with a further RM 43 million contributed by the 110 SMEs themselves. The companies will receive end-to-end facilitation anywhere from concept to commercialisation in moving their innovations to the market.
Fourteen of the innovations have already moved into commercialisation within a short period 18 months following PlaTCOM facilitation. Examples of these innovations include an innovative automobile engine dry cleaning technology which cleans car engines efficiently, a novel oil-water deep fryer technology that keeps cooking oil fresh and clean, a real-time monitoring system for holistic operating theatre management that saves costs and time, and an innovative battery recycling technology for mobile electric powering designed for urban and rural needs.
In terms of IP monetisation, PlaTCOM has facilitated the transfer of 112 Intellectual Property Rights from Malaysian universities, public research institutes and from Businessto-Business. This leadership in technology transfer activity has helped to narrow the gap in industry-academia collaboration.
AIM played a major role in defining strategies to transform strategic sectors of the Malaysian economy under the National Biomass Strategy 2020 and the National Graphene Action Plan 2020.
The National Biomass Strategy 2020 was initiated in November 2011 to assess how Malaysia can gain more revenue from its palm oil industry through the utilisation of the leftover biomass. It is a result of extensive collaboration between the Malaysian Government and private sector companies as well as domestic and international academic and research institutes.
The National Biomass Strategy Delivery Unit( 1MBAS) led by AIM, was setup in March 2012 to serve as the Central Government Agency to strengthen the execution of the National Biomass Strategy 2020.
State-specific strategies were developed for the two states in East Malaysia that are bestowed with more than 50 % of the available biomass, namely the Sarawak and Sabah Biomass Industry Development Plan( SSBIDP). The key is to ensure that local players will participate in the real biomass value creation, migrating from feedstock supply into higher value added downstream activities that are both sustainable and commercially viable.
The National Graphene Action Plan 2020 was developed by NanoMalaysia Berhad, Performance Management and Delivery Unit( Pemandu) and AIM. The Plan focuses on developing the graphene downstream value chain from intellectual property, to prototyping, to scale-up manufacturing. Rozario reveals that assistance is currently being given to 22 companies who are involved various stages of product development. Under the plan, there are five priority areas in graphene application which are conductive links, rubber additives, nanofluids, lithium-ion batteries and plastic additives.( See accompanying article)
Thanks to AIM’ s quick delivery of innovation-related programmes and institutional support, the momentum of the innovation eco-system in Malaysia has begun to accumulate. However, it will take longer than 2020 to evaluate whether AIM has inspired a new generation of innovative entrepreneurs and successfully generated additional revenue to Malaysia’ s GDP.- Inforeach
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