Featured in the Media – Page 27 – Asia School of Business

Philippine companies should be prepared to adopt artificial intelligence in their businesses as its development and application accelerated rapidly in the past few years, according to Asia School of Business chief executive and president Sanjay Sarma. Sarma said in an interview with reporters AI was developing at an unprecedented pace and would be everywhere soon. Companies that would not be able to take advantage of this technology would be left behind by competition, he said.

“I’m telling you. It’s not 10 years. It’s one or two years. The reason is that for these transforming technologies, there are now lots of companies working. And there’s millions, hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on it,” Sarma said. He said while older and successfully-adopted technologies such as automated teller machines took about 15 years to be widely accepted, people no longer have the luxury of time with AI.

Sarma confirmed that AI could eliminate jobs for many people. “In the Philippines, AI is going to replace jobs. So, let’s accept that. And the Philippines should become the country that leads the world in how to use AI in call centers. It will put some people out of work, but at least you define the rules of how it works,” said Sarma. Sarma said workers in local industries such as business process outsourcing, retail and food should upgrade their skills to do the things that technology could not.

“You can’t be at this level, you have to go up, because the attack comes from below. It’s like a tiger, you know, it’s chasing you, you climb a tree, the tiger learns to climb the first 10 feet, well, you have to climb higher,” he said. Sarma, who is also a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’ Sloan School of Management is a leading authority in AI, Internet of Things and education.

ASB was established in 2015 by Bank Negara Malaysia in collaboration with MIT Sloan School of Management. It aims to be a premier business school that develops transformative and principled leaders who will contribute to the advancement of the emerging world, particularly in Asia.

Originally published by Manila Standard.

The government will allocate RM5 million for the Executive Digital Leadership (EDL) Programme conducted in strategic collaboration between the Ministry of Economy through its agency, MyDIGITAL Corporation, and the Asia School of Business/MIT Sloan Management. Minister of Economy Rafizi Ramli said the three-month programme offered a learning experience conducted by the Asia School of Business and MIT Sloan Management and is an effort by the government to build a competitive digital economy.

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Originally published by The Star.
Picture courtesy of The Star

Despite practical experience in business growth, I lacked academic business knowledge. Searching for the right MBA program, I sought a blend of my extensive experience and academic rigour. With a solid foundation of a 15-year career, I’ve served renowned consultancies like Deloitte, KPMG, EY, and Accenture for over a decade. My pivotal role before pursuing an MBA was leading the strategy team of an AgriTech startup. These roles shaped my knack for growing businesses and teams.

Yet, I felt a piece missing from my professional puzzle – an MBA. Despite practical experience in business growth, I lacked academic business knowledge. Searching for the right MBA program, I sought a blend of my extensive experience and academic rigour. This quest led me to the Asia School of Business (ASB). The ASB collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in Cambridge granted me an opportunity to spend our spring semester at the institute which I found appealing.

ASB also offered an exploration gateway to Southeast Asia, a region poised for significant growth. At the heart of this region is Malaysia, teeming with startup culture, and ripe with opportunities. Malaysia’s allure extends to picturesque locales, culinary delights, and strategic geographic position, making it ideal for students and travellers.

Living in Malaysia, I’ve experienced the “Malaysia Truly Asia” slogan firsthand, the country being a vibrant melting pot of cultures and ideas. Stationed strategically in Southeast Asia, Malaysia provides access to dynamic economies like Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Bali. This global diversity is mirrored in my class, with students representing these varied nations.

Come Prepared

With the benefit of hindsight, the best advice I can give to anyone who wants to come and study in Malaysia is to come with a plan. It is ok to figure things out, but if you already have a plan, it will save you a lot of time and you would be able to better utilise all the resources at your disposal.

The salary trend in Malaysia is very different from that of the rest of the world but at the same time the cost of living is also very low, so when you access or compare salaries, be mindful of the cost of living as well. Although Malaysia is known for its food, it’s great if you can cook a little as that will not only save you time but money as well.

The author is an MBA student at Asia School of Business, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Originally published by The Free Press Journal.

Mention sovereign funds and names like Norway’s Government Global Pension, Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, and Malaysia’s Khazanah Nasional come to mind. Starting next year, Sarawak’s Sovereign Wealth Future Fund will join the mix. We speak with Elsa Satkunasingam, Senior Business Development Advisor, Executive Education, of the Asia School of Business to understand the best practices that go into setting up a sovereign wealth fund.

Listen to the full interview below.

Originally published by BFM.

Originally published by MBA International Business.

A highly dynamic institution with close connections to the Sloan School of Management at MIT—where Dean Sanjay Sarma spent nearly 10 years as vice president for open learning—the Asia School of Business (ASB) has employed an “action-first” approach to learning since it was established in 2015.

Students in the school’s flagship MBA program, for example, embark on semester-long, mission-driven projects with host companies. Working to identify key business challenges, students then plan and implement their solutions before reflecting on their results. Since the initiative began there have been 467 ‘Action Learning’ projects at ASB, with 207 host companies in 33 countries. While action learning has come to define the ASB MBA, today the school is busy shaping another kind of education, aptly known as Agile Continuous Education (ACE).

In today’s rapidly evolving business environment—where breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, changes in the regulatory environment, and increasing standards on sustainability can have widespread impact—the responsibility of business schools has changed, Dean Sarma says. “The days of studying for a degree such as an MBA and being set for your career are over. We are well and truly in the era of continuous education, and we must provide it to our graduates.”

The continuous MBA education

Underpinning the school’s move towards lifelong education is the need for today’s graduates to constantly specialize and re-specialize throughout their careers, explains Dean Sarma. As their careers evolve, today’s business school students will have to rapidly acquire the new skills they need at work—whether it is in a large corporation, a small and nimble company, or in a single-proprietor gig.

As companies cannot afford to continuously retrain new employees for their jobs, this could mean revisiting education many times after graduation, says the dean, adding: “At ASB, we see it as our responsibility to equip graduates to hit the ground running, and to equip them with the ability to acquire new knowledge for themselves and for the company as they need it.”

He uses the example of technological innovations such as generative AI, which will undoubtedly impact the workplace. “Companies need employees with the tech chops to help them utilize these tools,” he says.

“With ACE, we empower our students to succeed in their careers, allowing graduates who have completed the MBA program to continue learning through hybrid learning content that is tailored to their career paths,” explains Dean Sarma. Graduation just becomes a mere milestone, he adds and ASB students will be able to return to study short form courses that cover a range of areas that are specific to their needs in the workplace.

Gig education for the gig economy

ACE will change how ASB works, with lifelong education being the outcome. Additionally, it will help to educate more people than a typical business school. Offering modules and short courses focused on specialized skills and knowledge—an introduction to AI, for example, or an update on the latest developments in fintech—means educational opportunities for learners outside ASB who also require these skills.

Alumni themselves can point this resource out to colleagues, Dean Sarma explains, adding: “Not everyone is ready for—or needs—an MBA, but they may also want to come and drink from the well.

“For those who are facing existential questions because of rapid tech changes, this provides the opportunity to update their knowledge and even pivot into new areas as they progress in their careers. “I’ve always felt the agile, gig economy and the gig future deserve a gig education system. That’s basically what we are doing.”

The future is hybrid

If you apply for an MBA this year, the vast majority of learning opportunities at ASB will be in-person, and students will be able to reap the benefits of studying and interacting together in a dynamic classroom. It won’t be a passive lecture-over-video model, however, explains the dean.

Instead, there will be “doing sessions”, where students apply their learning in case studies, implementation examples, action learning, labs, scenarios, simulations, and workshops.But getting it right remains a challenge: “When you go into the hybrid environment, you have to really work at it,” Dean Sarma says.

Achieving ACE, effectively delivered in a hybrid format, is a step-by-step process at ASB. Dean Sarma highlights that the school is at the beginning of its journey. However, incorporating current ASB students into this evolution is one way the school plans to make it successful.

“When you make changes, your closest innovators need to be your lead users. This is because they understand it best but they also help you improve and pivot based on feedback,” he explains. “You can’t just assume you have it right the first time. But when you really hit the zone, it’s fantastic collectively.”

Originally published by BusinessBecause.

Sri Preethaji (right) and Sri Krishnaji, co-founders of Ekam.

KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 6): Sustainability will not happen if it does not begin from an inner consciousness that we are one with the universe. This is the message of Indian spiritual leader Sri Preethaji, who was speaking at a talk entitled “Conscious Sustainability: A paradigm shift from within”, in Kuala Lumpur on Friday (Aug 5). “It may look like we are separate from the world, but in reality, we are connected with it.

The trees produce oxygen, which we breathe. Our existence is supported by the whole universe,” she said in her talk organised by the Asia School of Business (ASB). “Do you think we can survive if we keep destroying the species around us?” she asked. Preethaji zeroed in on the consumption frenzy of modern society as a root cause of the sustainability crisis.

“We are facing this problem today because we just want more and more and more — more wealth, more profit, more food, more growth,” she said. The solution is to go within and find our inner stillness, said Preethaji, who is the co-creator of Ekam, described in her profile as a global centre for enlightenment. When we act from that place of oneness, she said, our existence becomes a blessing to every being around us.

Preethaji is on a world tour for the next two years “to share life-transforming insights and practices to ignite a passion and quest for enlightenment”. In his opening remarks, Dr Renato Lima de Oliveira, an assistant professor of business and society at the ASB, presented an overview of the sustainability programme of the business school. The talk was organised under the outreach activities of the programme, he said.

Speaking to theedgemarkets.com, Preethaji said that when we are stressed internally, we may strive for wealth, but it does not give us fulfilment. However, when we create from a sense of inner calmness, that harmony is reflected in our entire being and all that we do. She recommended a three-minute practice — “The Serene Mind” — to increase inner clarity.

Originally published by The Edge.

ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) and robotics seem to be the hottest topics and trends today. These tools are being used in many sectors, especially education, manufacturing and government services. However, their use has sparked debate among people as these new, revolutionary inventions may soon replace some jobs, like those of educators. At the recent AI@Work Leadership Summit, hosted by the Asia School of Business (ASB), business and government leaders, policymakers, educators and industry experts gathered to discuss the advances in AI and robotics.

Is AI a threat to educators?

The worry of AI and robots replacing humans’ jobs has been an ongoing topic for quite some time. So are they really going to take away our jobs? ASB professor of Practice, Finance and Analytics Ong Shien Jin has the opposite view from what most people think. “By combining the analytical power of AI with the expertise of educators, we can create a future where data-driven insights and personalised learning experiences are far more integrated, empowering educators and learners to reach new heights,” he said.

Ong said this technology would make education more meaningful, allowing educators and learners to advance further. “AI and robotics are more likely to augment their capabilities. They can assist educators by automating administrative tasks, providing data-driven insights into personalised instruction, or providing additional learning resources.

“This collaboration between humans and technology has the potential to enhance the educational experience for educators and students.” To illustrate this view, ASB assistant professor of Economics Sam Flanders showed the analytical power of ChatGPT with a live demonstration. He used ChatGPT to analyse data collected from summit participants and generated descriptive statistics within a matter of minutes.

Coming of age of robotic learning

MIT assistant professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Pulkit Agrawal provided insights into recent advancements in robots that employ API (artificial physical intelligence).He emphasised robots’ enormous potential for releasing humans from arduous tasks, allowing them to potentially regain time to focus on less menial endeavours.

“The science of making these robots has progressed at unparalleled speed. Robots are taking over tedious, monotonous, physically taxing and sometimes dangerous tasks. Let’s embrace it,” said Pulkit. He cited an example of how people spent their 24 hours a day, and how AI and robots could give back their time spent doing chores if they could be taught to do them. “What we have today are specialist robots, which are great at doing one thing, but what people want are robots that can do different tasks.”

Unlocking ethical transformation

MIT senior associate dean of Digital Learning and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Professor of Physics Isaac Chuang said as with any transformative technology, ethical considerations were paramount. “Responsible and beneficial use of AI and quantum computing should be prioritised.” He said quantum computing could enhance AI’s capabilities in areas such as pattern recognition, optimisation and simulation.

“AI, in turn, can assist in quantum machine learning and error correction. The combination of these technologies can accelerate scientific discoveries, optimise supply chains and improve decision-making processes. “However, one must be on the lookout for errors as AI is not foolproof.” MIT Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Daniela Rus said striking the right balance between innovation and ethical considerations was vital to building trust and ensuring responsible AI deployment.

“It is important to note that AI also creates new opportunities and paves the way for job transformation.” ASB chief executive officer, president and dean of the School of Business Sanjay Sarma said despite challenges, the future of AI looked very promising. “Continued research and responsible development practices will enable further advancements in AI technology and adoption across industries, ultimately benefiting society as a whole.”

Originally published by New Straits Times.

The rise of online learning platforms and advanced language models like ChatGPT has sparked a contentious debate on the value of traditional degrees and business schools. CEO, President, and Dean of Asia School of Business Sanjay Sarma sheds light on the emergence of ‘job refugees’, the concept of ‘gig education’ and the urgent need for educational leadership to adapt.

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Originally published by Astro AWANI.

Following the artificial intelligence (AI) boom that kicked off late last year with the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, large tech companies have been in what feels like an AI arms race to take the lead. Industry giants like Google, Meta, Microsoft and others have been pushing further into the field of generative AI, but as the tools they create get more powerful, how much will they actually transform society?

At the Asia School of Business’ (ASB) Leadership Summit, which had the theme “AI@Work”, experts weighed in on what the future might bring. Prof Ong Shien Jin, who teaches data analytics at ASB, gave an overview of the history of AI, saying that while the buzz surrounding it has exploded in the past few months, its history goes as far back as the 1950s.

“Pioneering computer scientists were asking a question: can computers be made to think?” he said. One such scientist was Alan Turing, an English mathematician and computer scientist who developed the Turing test to determine whether or not a machine is capable of intelligent behaviour.

Prof Ong’s presentation included a live demonstration of ChatGPT solving an A-level maths problem.

The demonstration used the more powerful GPT-4 with the plug-in for Wolfram Alpha, a computational tool for answering questions and solving maths problems. “To me, this was truly impressive, because maths computation is one thing, but maths reasoning is a higher-order thinking skill. “So is it ‘game over’ for education as we know it? Maybe it’s time to rethink the maths curriculum. We think that AI is going to change education, not destroy it.

“We believe that there is a good possibility that AI and humanity can coexist in synergy, but this utopian vision is not a given because we have to work towards it,” he said. Samuel Flanders, a professor of economics at ASB, explained how ChatGPT could interpret and categorise huge blocks of text data. Prof Flanders said that in cases where there’s an abundance of text data, such as reviews or social media posts, ChatGPT can be used to extract specific information or themes from large datasets.

“In the past, your options to deal with this sort of dataset were either very superficial or very difficult to execute. “For example, you could do a search to figure out how frequently a keyword appears and associate it with a certain type of response. “Or more recently, you could do a sentiment analysis to figure out if a response is generally positive or negative. “But these are superficial; if we want to go deeper and understand what’s really going on in the data, it’s very hard to do that. “Now, you can ask holistic qualitative questions about a big dataset of text, and you can get an answer in just a few minutes,” he said.

Bring your A-game

Another demo of ChatGPT’s utility was from ASB Master’s student Swaroop Ganireddy, who managed to build an interactive website with ChatGPT in just 10 minutes by simply providing it information via prompts. Had he taken it upon himself to build it, it would have taken Swaroop over a month. Additionally, Swaroop demonstrated a Windows-compatible tic-tac-toe game that ChatGPT entirely created.

Ganireddy built a website live on stage using only prompts fed into ChatGPT. — ASB

Meanwhile, Prof Isaac Chuang, the senior associate dean of digital learning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), discussed a possible solution to chatbot hallucinations. Prof Chuang credits the solution to a paper by his colleagues Antonio Torralba and Joshua Tenenbaum, who had two large language models (LLM) propose differing answers and then debate in order to reach a consensus.

“The paper has these two agents talk to each other by presenting each answer to the other and asking them to resolve their differences. “In the second round, the agents apologised for the confusion and the conflicting responses and came to an agreement,” he said. Another speaker from MIT was Prof Daniela Rus, a roboticist and director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, who was optimistic about the future as the vital ingredients are already in place.

“This promise and progress are enabled by three interconnected fields. “We have robotics, which puts computing into motion and gives machines the ability to move. “We have AI, which gives machines intelligence and enables them to see, hear, and even communicate like humans. “And we have machine learning, which aims to learn from and make predictions on data,” she said.

Prof Rus shared examples of the potential of AI technology to eliminate car accidents, make transportation more affordable, better monitor, diagnose, and treat disease, keep information private and safe, enable easier communication, and make education more widespread. This would allow human workers to focus on tasks requiring critical thinking and strategy, with machines taking on other, more routine tasks. She added that, at a more granular level, all fields that have data can benefit from AI.

Other AI-based startups were also present at the event, with Urbanmetry’s CEO and founder, Cha-Ly Koh, illustrating how AI was being used in her company to clean city data and apply it to ascertain climate risks along with their impact on housing prices in a specific area. V-Cred uses AI to analyse data from loan providers, platform partners and other sources to evaluate credit risk, with the goal of approving more loans and reducing defaults.

Originally published by The Star.
Pictures courtesy of The Star.

Category: Featured in the Media