Warisan Global Malaysia (Asian SE Cases 6 of 8)

Malaysia

Warisan Global

The Challenge

Malaysia’s government has set the goal to raise the country’s education standards to world-class level. Focusing on the education of the students now will allow for Malaysia to develop a more competitive workforce as they push towards becoming a developed nation by 2020. One of the government’s main concerns now is how to “Plug the Brain Drain”.

It has been known for years now that millions of talented Malaysians are working overseas and recently it has been increasing in pace – a serious brain drain. It is estimated that two of every three Malaysian that works overseas are professionals. The impact of such a brain drain has already been seen to negatively impact the country – in Penang, there was a multi-billion ringgit foreign investment that was lost simply due to the fact that there was no guarantee that there would be enough experienced electrical and electronic engineers available to ensure success. Whether it is the country’s pride or the economy, the brain drain is hurting Malaysians.

The Entrepreneur and Solution

Warisan Global (WG) is a private limited company founded in 2000 where its core business is to conceptualize, design and implement projects for top Malaysian corporations, government ministerial groups, and community based organizations focused on youth, entrepreneurship and environment. In the long run, the goal is to evolve these projects into long-term sustainable projects so that Malaysians can become more globally competitive. WG’s aim is to retain talent inside the country by creating learning community centres that exposes the idea of entrepreneurship to Malaysian youth and rural communities. Along with the exposure, these projects will help develop the entrepreneurial mindset which will eventually bring upon a fundamental social change that will hopefully put a plug on the brain drain.

WG and the government, along with corporate partners, have collaborated on creating corporate social responsibility programs to support other organizations that are moving in the same direction. They have also built telecentres, also known as IT kiosks, in rural communities so that the people can access the vast amount of information online to gain insight on what is happening in the world and to learn about the different opportunities that are available to them. These are just a few of the ways WG is developing the Malaysian people to fill in the gap created by the current brain drain and to help move towards the goal of becoming a developed country.