INTRODUCTION
On 24th September 25, 2018, Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation or MDEC had given a talk about what is MDEC and GLOW. The speaker, Mr. Mohd Ihsanuddin Jamhari was given the talk on that day.
MDEC was launched in 1996 as one of the government initiatives to pioneer the transformation of digital market in Malaysia. MDEC provides a platform for anyone interested to pursue income in the digital market. This also can close the income gap between low – class income and high – class income. MDEC was consisting of 3 main platforms; eUsahawan, which is a platform where small micro-entrepreneur can promote their product, without any fees such as rental for places. There also have Erezeki for a local platform to gain up their reputation as an entrepreneur and their product. Lastly, MDEC also provides an alternative platform named Global Online Workforce (GLOW). Many aspects that differentiate GLOW with other platforms that MDEC provided such as the type of products/services, people that qualified to participate, and how much the cost that will be used.
GLOW also have partnerships with a handful of a few famous marketers in Malaysia such as Kerja Digital, 123RF limited, Supahands, Ezyspark and many more. they also have a partnership with international freelancing agents such as Upwork Global Inc and Freelancer International Pty Limited. This shows how good GLOW program to keep maintaining hundreds of freelancing job on the program itself.
OVERVIEW
Global Online Workforce (GLOW) objectives are:
- To build high-skilled digital-worker community among Malaysian.
- Introduced to people about an alternative career as a freelancer through digital platform income.
- Produce and promote services that can be provided in the world.
One of the profits to anyone that joins GLOW is the flexibility to maintain your life with your work time. This is mainly because the program is projected digital based, so people don’t need to sit in the office cubicle from 8 a.m to 5 p.m every single day. They can manage their time to accomplish the work given from the GLOW crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing can be defined as a method where work being offered in the digital platform, as for this case, GLOW platform.
To join Glow Online Workforce, MDEC offered 3 choices, which are Fast Track, High Learning Institution, and Premium Program. Fast Track program is for a freelancer, qualified graduates either from the private sector or public admission. Next, High Learning Institution will be offered to graduates from the Faculty of Science Computer, Creative Design, Education, Business Administration, and any related fields, High Learning Institution are different from Fast Track because High Learning Institution participant will be guided for the whole semester based on subject semester, or fixed September semester while Fast Track training only consists of individual mentoring for 2 days and followed by online monitoring for 10 days. Lastly, Premium Program is the only program offered which the participant has to pay a minimum of RM2, 500 fees (fees may vary based on package provided). The fees will cover the expenses of 14 days of program and 5 days mentoring,
REFLECTION
MDEC talks about GLOW give me a new perspective about how the government has provided us especially to the youngster like me to gain not just an alternative income, but also a platform to gain such knowledge about how e-commerce. As GLOW platform are not limited to project in Malaysia, this will give me a great experience on how to communicate in a professional way to the international market. With the program provided for Undergraduates like me, this is a go-to opportunity for me to grab because in Industrial 4.0, 15 major fields will emerge and roughly 7.1 million jobs will be lost for the upcoming revolution (Charles McLellan, 2017).
Furthermore, with the competition to gain and success in the IT field, GLOW program was a stepping stone for me improving and become one step ahead from other people. As technology grows exponentially, the demand for professional and experience also getting higher. So, for me to join GLOW is the best choice to make, this is mainly because all the benefit is heavily on my side such as experience that I can gain from GLOW program, especially the High Learning Institution program.
As a student, money was one of the issues that can be classified as a universal problem. for that, joining GLOW program not just give me an experience, it also provided me as a passive income for a full-time undergraduate student. I don't need to hustle around in weekend just to gain couple bucks for myself, now I can freelancing a job just from my room. It's convenient as it sounds. On a side note, GLOW does not charge any fees or percentage from your profit. 100% the payment you get are all yours.
CONCLUSION
Overall, MDEC had provided an excellent platform for millennials like me to have a place and job suitable with Industrial 4.0 over time. No more excuse such as no jobs for fresh graduates, too many graduates is out of job and etc. As time goes by, working in freelancing and project-based job become more important and might be compulsory in a certain field, so, this program is not only beneficial to the job searcher, it also benefits the client in terms of cut costing, time-saving and reducing any unnecessary overhead cost that they need to bear.
Other than that, I also have a few suggestions regarding how to improve the GLOW programs. First off, they should do more campaign and promoting all of E-Rezeki program especially for those who have the expertise. as I can tell, most of the people in the hall, including me don't know anything about the GLOW program before. This is such a waste because more people can get benefit from this program only if they got the exposure like talks, campaign and many more ways to acknowledge them about the E-Rezeki platform. Second, as Industrial 4.0 will create more jobs opportunity in IT field, MDEC should give other non-related IT people to join the GLOW program. In my opinion, giving other people to join the program not also increase and balance the supply-demand in Online jobs.
Finally, I can conclude that GLOW is an extremely important program provided by MDEC for us to compete in the upcoming Industrial Revolution 4.0. I hope this program can be improved in a certain section and continue to provide us with freelancing and project-based job especially for Data Scientist in the future.
References
Partners - MDeC Global Online Workforce. (n.d.). Retrieved September 29, 2018, from https://glowmalaysia.com/partners/?lang=en/.
McLellan, C. (2017, December 1). IT jobs in 2020: Preparing for the next industrial revolution | ZDNet. Retrieved September 29, 2018, from https://www.zdnet.com/article/it-jobs-in-2020-preparing-for-the-next-industrial-revolution/