L E M B A GA JURUTERA MALAYSIA
BOARD OF ENGINEERS MALAYSIA
THE
INGENIEUR
VOL.77
JANUARY-MARCH 2019
KDN PP 11720/4/2013 (032270)
MAGAZINE OF T HE BOARD O F ENGINEERS MALA Y S I A
EMERGING
T E C H N O L O G Y
EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
Technology for all (Edge Financial Daily – Dani
Rodrik)
We live in a world with an ever-widening chasm
between the skills of the ‘average’ worker and the
capabilities demanded by frontier technologies.
Robots, software and artificial intelligence have
increased corporate profits and raised demand
for skilled professionals. But they replace
factory, sales and clerical workers — hollowing
out the traditional middle class. This “skills gap”
contributes to deepening economic inequality and
insecurity and ultimately to political polarisation —
the signature problems of our time.
The gap between skills and technology can be
closed in one of two ways:
i. by increasing education to match the
demands of new technologies, or
ii. by redirecting innovation to match the skills
of the current labour force.
Instead of replacing semi-skilled or unskilled
labour with machines, societies can push for
innovations that specially increase those tasks
that ordinary workers are able to perform. This
could be achieved through new technologies
that either allow workers to do the work that was
previously performed by more skilled people,
or enable the provision of more specialised,
customised services by the existing workforce.
Examples are craftsmen to undertake engineers’
tasks.
A fundamental reason why society underinvests
in innovations that benefit ordinary people
has to do with the distribution of power. Science
and technology are designed to provide answers
and solve problems. But which questions are
asked and whose problems are solved depends
on whose voice gets the upper hand.
Time to harness new and emerging technologies
(NST)
December 3 marked a watershed moment for
the nation’s technical profession fraternity. The
inaugural National Technical Profession Day was
launched in 2019 to recognise the contribution of
the technical profession in charting the nation’s
progressive landscape.
The key role played by the technical profession in
Japan, Germany and China in nation-building and
economic development.
In Germany, seven out of 10 companies, valued
at €170 billion, were from technical-centric
sectors such as information and communications
technology, telecommunications and automotive.
Research attributed the rapid growth of China,
Japan and Korea in the last three decades to
the revolutionary technological advancement,
research and innovation driven by the technical
profession domain.
This comes as no surprise considering the
emphasis placed by these high-income countries
on Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) and Technical and Vocational
Education and Training (TVET) in their educational
agenda, which aims to produce a technically
competent workforce.
The Future of Jobs Report, published by the
World Economic Forum (WEF), which analysed
employment, skills and workforce strategy,
reveals vital skills sets required for the future with
analytical thinking and innovation, active learning
and learning strategies, as well as creativity,
originality and initiative being the top three skills
to grow in prominence by 2022.
The technical profession should strive to evolve
and transform in order to stay competitive and
relevant in the face of rapidly changing workforce
skills requirements.
The nation’s transformative journey from an
agriculture-based to an industrial-driven economy
would not have been possible without the
significant contribution of the skilled and trained
technical profession.
69