S’wak Smart City ecosystem can attract twin cities partnerships; generate investment, talent inflow, retention

Dr Zaidi presenting on Sarawak's smart city plan at the MSCA Retreat 2023.

KUCHING, Feb 3: Sarawak Smart City ecosystem has the propensity to attract twin cities partnerships and generate investment, talent inflow and retention.

In pointing this out, Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) general manager Dr Zaidi Razak said as part of the State government’s policy to focus on the digital economy to propel Sarawak to achieve developed status by 2030, innovation and development should not only depend on the government investment but also from the involvement of private, start-ups, and individuals.

“With Sarawak Smart City ecosystem designed to be a secure, open, and technology agnostic platform, and incorporate a wide array of robust and best of breed technologies and solutions for entities to build on, it enables the lower total cost of ownership, faster development and implementation,” he said during Malaysia Smart Cities Alliance Association (MSCA) Retreat 2023, held at Eventscape @ Rekascape Cyberjaya on Feb 1.


According to Dr Zaidi, Sarawak’s Smart City initiatives includes the Kuching Smart City Masterplan (KSCMP) with the Smart City Operating System that aims to deliver various system services to enable the service providers within the smart city ecosystem to participate together in innovating the city services.

He explained it also maps out the development of core smart city digital infrastructure platforms and essentially shared smart city applications.

“With that, the government agencies, private sector, and community will be able to deliver their services and products using the shared smart city applications.

“Invariably, these will lead to an ecosystem that has better optimisation of resources and enable trusted collaboration with the private sectors, resulting in the sustainable accelerated growth of the Sarawak Digital Economy,” he said.

Meanwhile, on the MSCA Retreat 2023, Dr Zaidi said SMA received an overwhelming response from the attendees that attended the session.

He added that they are keen to share their expertise with Sarawak and willing to learn from SMA on Sarawak’s Smart City initiatives. — DayakDaily