ASB Research Series
The ASB Research Seminar Series (RSS) is a monthly series hosted by ASB that invites academics and professors from various universities worldwide to give talks and share insights about their research and ongoing work. They engage in discussions on various research topics with ASB’s esteemed researchers and faculty members, receiving feedback and comments on their work.
ASB RSS are now in hybrid mode and are usually held at lunchtime.
If you would like to present at and/or attend the ASB RSS please contact the Research Office: research@asb.edu.my
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What does it mean to be remembered as a hero in national history?
Sejarah textbooks outline familiar names: Leftenan Adnan bin Saidi, “Lion of Malaya” Gurchan Singh, and Albert Kwok, amongst several others— figures enshrined in national memory for defending the country against colonialism, lauded for their bravery, strength, and loyalty to the nation. On the opposing end, members of the Chinese community contest against the official narratives of wartime memorial, advocating for their historical trauma and resistance efforts during wartime occupation to be given recognition, a bid consistently spurned by the authority figures within the Malay community. The terrain of wartime memorial is thus far from simple; the rendering of dominant narratives rests upon a constricting vocabulary of nationality, virtue, and race, prone to ongoing contestation.
Juxtaposed against this backdrop is the story of Tow Siang Yew: an ordinary man from Swatow (汕头) who migrated to Malaya as a toddler, and a father to a Chinese Malaysian family. As a mere teenager, he made an extraordinary trek from Hong Kong to Chungking (重庆) in a desperate bid to flee from the 1941 invasion of the Japanese, only to re-enter war in an unexpected twist of fate. For 7 years, Tow Siang Yew flew aboard China’s war planes, not as a pilot, but as a radio operator.
Caught within the grooves of wartime memorial, Tow’s motivations and choices complicate the state notion of a war hero: a story perhaps less about virtuous loyalty to a nation, and more akin to that of an ordinary Malayan shaped by circumstances of the moment, made up of economic conditions, one’s social networks, happenstance, and most profoundly— the mundane desire to survive.
Above all else, however, Tow’s story illuminates that the act of remembrance itself is never neutral— and that when admission into the terrain of wartime memorial entails the compression of one’s complex humanity into rigid boxes of national allegiance and race, perhaps the medallion of a legacy, so coveted, may itself serve as another form of erasure.
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The sound of air-raid sirens sliced across British Hong Kong on the morning of 8th December 1941. Hours later, Japanese troops crossed the Shenzhen river and struck north of the territory as bombs fell upon the city, heralding Japan’s 3-year occupation of Hong Kong within what would be the biggest war of the 20th century. Tow Siang Yew might have felt vibrations of the bombings reverberate through the walls. Hailing from Swatow, he is at the green age of 19 years old then, and a mere 6 months into being a medical student at Hong Kong University.
As a child, Tow Siang Yew’s first choice wasn’t to be a doctor, but an artist. His father was a revolutionary who served as a medical superintendent under the Chinese Nationalist Army of Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek. When the Kuomintang fell during China’s great upheaval, he fled to Malaya— imagined to be “paradise”— and bought up a rubber estate in Johor. In 1929, the Great Depression hit Malaya’s markets, felling his hopes of becoming a rubber tycoon. By the time he asked his son, a lover of painting, on what he wished to be once he grew up, the man had laboured to set up a medical practice in Kluang against great hardship and dire straits. “The artist will not survive,” he avowed. Thus, in 1941, Siang Yew set off to the University of Hong Kong for his medical education— a stint fated to be short-lived.
The day of the Japanese invasion, a British professor from the University, Gordon King, had already left for Chungking three days prior. Not long after troops began ransacking the streets, his voice would travel through a radio speaker, calling for any students still remaining to join him, with a promise that they may continue their studies there. It was upon this radio announcement that around 30 Singaporean and Malayan students— Tow Siang Yew among them — would make the decision to follow in his footsteps (Chua, 1982).
Across the following weeks, the group split into smaller clusters, each leaving for Chungking. Eventually, with whatever belongings and little money they could gather, Tow and his friends dressed as ordinary villagers and fled to the coast. There, they secured a fishing boat in the dead of the night and sailed to North Vietnam: an intentionally indirect route to China, avoiding persecution in Japanese-occupied territory. Upon landfall, they begin walking— a trek of a hazy, grueling, unknowable duration. Perhaps it is more than a month; without a clock, any sense of time is difficult. At some point, however, their labour bears fruit: closing the straight-line distance of nearly 850 kilometers between their campus and Chungking, they reached the small town of China’s wartime capital.
Arrival was scarce relief— having sold all they had to survive, most who made the journey are nearly penniless upon arrival. In a squalid room furnished with only a single mattress and a mosquito net, Siang Yew and around nine others squeezed and made do. Hungry and with nothing to eat, they scavenged for food by scrounging around the village during the middle of the night. Relief later arrived via radio— a second foretelling of what lay in store— an official recruitment call for pilots and other vacant positions in the Allies’ war effort. Unable to withstand his conditions any longer, Tow took up the offer. With his first application to be a pilot rejected on the basis of his short sightedness, Tow undeterredly signed up to what his nephew, in retelling the story, called “the next best thing”: a radio operator.
To be a radio operator during World War II as a mere 19-year-old was far from a desk occupation. Flying to and fro between Chungking and Calcutta, his trajectory involved navigating a deadly terrain called the Hump, colloquially known as “The Aluminium Trail”, and in lengthier fashion: “the foremost and by far the most dangerous, difficult and historic achievement of the entire war”. An aerial view of the Hump justifies its title— silver shimmers scatter across the Hump, debris from fallen planes who failed to triumph the treacherous Himalayas and its high winds, subzero temperatures, thunderstorms, and peaks exceeding 18,000 feet. Flying over this silver path, radio operators are seated by their pilot, appointed to a task that makes all the difference between their life and death: Tuning into the radio, they seek to intercept signals from enemy Japanese planes, with which a trigger-happy encounter would swiftly lead to demise.
A crashed C-46 Commando transport aircraft in the Hump, September 1945 (Source: CBI-Theater.com)
As a radio operator, Tow contributed to a larger purpose of China’s military aviation: carrying essential supplies for the Nationalist Government. These included ammunition, food, medical supplies, bombs, and gasoline, amounting to a total of 650,000 tons of military supplies delivered across the war (Deng and Zhang, 2018). Tow’s role fell under the purview of the China Aviation National Service, a Sino-American commercial outfit established by the Chinese government and Pan American Airways. During his service, Tow made up a larger personnel of approximately 175 radio operators, the majority of whom were of Chinese descent. He ended his term of employment in 1945, amounting his time as a radio operator to a total of seven years.
Tow Siang Yew at the base, with planes in the background (Source: John Tow Shanton, CNAC.org)
Tow passed in 1992, at the venerable age of 69 years. After the war, he resumed his education at the Singapore King Edward VII College of Medicine, eventually starting a solo medical practice leading to his election as the president of the Penang Medical Practitioners’ Society in 1967. Today, the shoplot of what was once Dr Tow Siang Yew’s clinic is located at Dickens Street, Penang. Five months after his death, his close friend wrote of Tow in his obituary that he “was not afraid to die”— a greatest friend who “numbered among his hobbies fine arts, painting and collecting, and a great game of golf”.
As Tow’s wife and daughter retell his life to me, it is made clear that Tow’s world was much bigger than his time in Chungking— that for him, his wartime participation was merely one chapter, bridged to many others in his life: his practice as a doctor, his family, his 3 daughters and only son, his devout faith, and his hobbies of art and golfing. Such a story, however, is dissonant against narratives in wartime memorial, whose linear pathways are articulated along narrow corridors of nationality, virtue, and racial contestations of sacrifice.
Perhaps then what is most pressing within the consideration of Tow’s story, more than an enterprise of memorial, is the invitation for us to examine the impulse of memorial itself— What does being remembered as a hero really mean?
In Malaysia’s annual ceremony of Hari Pahlawan (Warrior’s Day), the Yang-di-Pertuan-Agong and the Prime Minister lay wreaths in remembrance of “all the heroes of the country for their services, deeds and sacrifices in ensuring security and defending the sovereignty of the country.” Sejarah textbooks commend resistance fighters for their nationalist spirit in protecting our tanah air against the Japanese colonizers. The Tugu Negara (“National Monument”) commemorates all who died in pursuit of Malaysia’s independence with seven bronze figures, each symbolising a quality: courage, sacrifice, leadership, strength, unity, suffering, and vigilance. The official decree is clarion: those who die in the name of a nation are those who are given a legacy, enshrined in a memory imbued with noble virtues of allegiance, patriotism, and altruistic courage— virtues often taken at its surface value, unquestioned, and absorbed into the wider national imagination.
Further still, where these virtuous legacies emerge is not neutral terrains of memory, but one that is racialised and contested. Since the mid-1990s, the trauma and role of anti-Japanese resistance amongst the Malaysian Chinese community have been long denied recognition in national history on the basis of anti-Communist sentiments, touted by the Malay community. In 2006, a commemorative activity by Chinese associations was criticised by a minister as “a memorial for communists” and enemies to the nation; the sentiment echoed across Malay press (Ting, 2021). Today, official narratives of wartime memorial remain Malay-dominated, shaped by Malay politicians, veterans, and religious authorities. Far from a blank slate, the terrain of memory harbouring the wartime hero’s legacy is uneven and unsettled, fraught with racial tensions, historical baggage, and the ardent desire of communities in the margins to be recognized for their sacrifices.
When the framework of wartime memorial is confined within such terms, to give someone a place in national memory means negotiating with their story to fit within them. And for Tow, whose participation in war was not driven by national allegiance, nor followed by desire for recognition on the basis of his Chinese identity, to memorialize him in wartime history would mean diminishing his story into terms that were never his own.
Tow Siang Yew’s story thus illuminates the erasure within the act of memorial— that submitting one’s story into national memory may also be to force it into submission, shoehorning the complex motivations of an individual into the gilded, narrow corridors of heroic virtue, or the battleground of communal memory. And so emerges the troubling question: In the pursuit of memorial, whose wills are contorted into virtuousness, or co-opted into racial terms?
By extension, Tow’s story prompts that the legacy of a national hero is worth questioning— that its virtuous, racial, nationality-bound story of patriotic altruism may be an insufficient receptacle for one’s humanity. Far from deviating from the norm, Tow’s story highlights the mundane humanness obscured by the luster of a state-benefacted glory: Perhaps, like Dr Tow, a hero was a student in pursuit of a future; perhaps a heroic act was a bid to survive. Or perhaps a hero merely responded to the shape of their circumstances, as minutely dictated by a confluence of arbitrary factors, social norms, and winds of fate within a moment too complex to grasp in a story. Perhaps the only difference between a hero and Tow Siang Yew was a border.
Underlying all of this is a cry for a history that can endure us: not one that is linear, curated, and determined by agendas of the nation-state, but a history that can welcome and mirror our mundane humanness in its simple, unglorified desires, detouring narrations, and multilayered whole. More than just an account of a radio operator, Tow’s story serves as an impetus for moving beyond the statecraft’s narrow frameworks of what is worth remembering, pushing for an imagination of what an alternative way to belong may look like.
In doing so, one might find that perhaps the most profound resistance against the confinements of national remembrance is to reclaim the act of remembering for ourselves— to defy the neat, convenient categorization of our human wills by making meaning out of our lives on our own terms, making space for our ordinary desires, decisions, and open-ended endings, and to deem it all worthy of a place in history— which is to say, to see our unique aliveness as important for its larger meaning connecting us with others across time and space, no matter the decree of those in ivory towers.
If history is to endure us in our wholeness, perhaps the memory of Tow does not rest in the monument, but embers with him on the road, shapeshifting across the valleys, unsettling like silt under saltwater. There, in his detours— where remembrance is not static, but alive across time and space— may we all find belonging for our mundanity; may our own detours, in turn, find their place to belong, too.
Pastel, 1958 by Tow Siang Yew. (Source: Jackie Tow, daughter of Tow Siang Yew, and without whom this essay would not have been possible)
References:
Au-Yeung, A. (2015) ‘A hope for refuge turns to starvation and stealing: my grandparents’ life under Japanese rule in WW2 in Hong Kong,’ South China Morning Post, 15 August. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1849579/starvation-and-stealing-life-my-hong-kong-grandparents-knew-under.
Chua, L.K. (1982) ‘’Chungking boys’ meet benefactor again after nearly 40 years’, The Straits Times, 8 March 1982, p. 13. Accessed at: https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/straitstimes19820308-1.2.59
Deng, L. and Zhang, Y. (2018) ‘Hump Pilot retells World War II stories,’ World – Chinadaily.com.cn, 9 March. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201803/10/WS5aa2b8daa3106e7dcc140bf6.html.
Letters, P. and Letters, P. (2017) ‘The Battle of Hong Kong through the eyes of people who survived it,’ South China Morning Post, 8 November. https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2054842/battle-hong-kong-through-eyes-people-who-lived.
The Straits Budget. (1966). ‘Medical society picks officials.’ 9 February 1966, p. 7. Accessed at: https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/straitsbudget19660209-1.2.38
The Straits Times (2017) ‘Dozens evacuated after WWII bomb found near Hong Kong campus, 23 January. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/dozens-evacuated-after-wwii-bomb-found-near-hong-kong-campus.
Moore, T.O. (2000) ‘Welcome to the Official Home Page for the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC)’, CNAC. Available at https://cnac.org/ (Accessed: 1 May 2026).
Moore, T.O. (2000) ‘CNAC Radio Operator Siang Yew Tow’, CNAC. Available at https://www.cnac.org/tow01.htm (Accessed: 1 February 2026).
Ting, H. (2021) ‘RECLAIMING NATIONAL BELONGING: THE POLITICS OF WORLD WAR TWO COMMEMORATION IN WEST MALAYSIA’. 馬來西亞華人研究學刊 (Journal of Malaysian Chinese Studies), (6), pp.29-57.
Tow, S.H. (2009) ‘Footprints in the Sands of Time’. Singapore: Reformation Banner Publishers.
When Memorial Is Erasure: The Story of a Radio Operator, and the Constricting Legacy of the Malaysian War Hero
Financial literacy cannot fix poverty when people have no financial room to choose.
Whether from policymakers, financial experts, the media, or international institutions, the message is remarkably consistent: financial literacy is the key to eradicating extreme poverty.
Save more. Budget carefully. Avoid unnecessary debt. Invest early. Build an emergency fund.
The advice is sensible. The problem is that it assumes something that many Malaysians simply do not have: room to choose.
In fact, Bank Negara Malaysia’s 2024 Financial Capability and Inclusion Demand Side Survey found that 61% of Malaysians would struggle to come up with RM1,000 in an emergency. At the same time, financial knowledge among Malaysians had improved from 60.2% in 2021 to 62.9% in 2024. Yet only 58% actively saved for the future.
This should make us pause.
If people knew more about managing money, but many still do not have enough financial buffer to withstand a RM1,000 emergency, perhaps the problem is not simply a lack of knowledge.
Perhaps it is a lack of money to work with.
Poverty is not simply an inability to make the right choices.
There is a tendency, sometimes explicit and sometimes subtle, to treat poverty as a consequence of poor individual decisions. If someone is in debt, perhaps they should have budgeted better. If they have no savings, perhaps they should have started earlier.
But this overlooks a fundamental question: what choices were actually available to them?
Consider two people who receive the same financial advice about building an emergency fund. One earns RM5,000 a month and has RM1,500 left after necessities. The other earns RM3,000 and has only RM100 left. Both may understand the importance of saving, but only one has a realistic opportunity to do so.
The difference is not necessarily financial knowledge. It is financial capacity.
We make financial decisions every day, and those decisions gradually shape our futures. But our freedom to choose depends on what we have left after meeting our basic needs. Someone with financial security can decide whether to save, invest, pursue further education, or take a better but lower-paying job. Someone struggling to make ends meet may instead be deciding whether to pay the electricity bill, buy groceries, or repay a debt.
The question shifts from “What is the best decision for my future?” to “How do I get through this month?”
That is not a failure of financial literacy. It is a lack of room to choose.
People living in poverty are not necessarily poor because they are lazy, irresponsible, or financially illiterate. Often, they are making the best decisions they can within very constrained circumstances.
Sometimes what looks like a bad financial decision is actually a constrained one.
Not long ago, the Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) reported that 28% of Malaysian working adults had borrowed money to purchase essential goods.
If someone borrows to pay for an essential expense, telling them simply to “manage their money better” misses the point. They may be making the best decision available within a very limited set of options.
There is a difference between borrowing because you want something you cannot afford and borrowing because you need something you cannot afford.
This is where our understanding of financial literacy needs to become more nuanced.
Financial stress also consumes mental space.
There is another reason why financial literacy alone is insufficient: poverty does not only constrain people’s wallets. It can also consume their mental bandwidth.
When someone is constantly worrying about whether they can afford groceries, repay a loan, pay rent or handle the next unexpected expense, their attention is inevitably drawn towards immediate financial problems. Planning five or ten years into the future becomes much harder when today’s problems keep recurring every month.
We are not saying that people experiencing poverty are without aspirations. However, aspirations require room to act. It is difficult to invest in skills, start a business, or save for retirement when today’s bills and emergencies consume what little is left.
Financial literacy can explain why these things matter, but it cannot create the financial room to make them possible.
This is where financial support matters.
If financial literacy is to contribute to poverty reduction, it needs to be paired with something that financial knowledge alone cannot provide: financial room to act.
This is not a new idea. The World Bank has specifically advocated for integrating financial literacy into cash-transfer programmes in the past. However, as of now, not many studies have been made to examine this approach.
An example of a cash transfer programme in Malaysia would be the Bantuan Rakyat 1 Malaysia (BR1M), which was later changed to Bantuan Sara Hidup (BSH). Based on a study from Universiti Teknologi MARA, BR1M/BSH recipients found that cash transfers did provide additional financial capacity to meet necessities and plan for the future to an extent.
Building on the above, we (ASEAN Research Center) are studying a similar “cash-plus” approach with ARUS Academy. Launched by FWD Insurance Berhad and Arus Academy, the Fun(d) for Life – University Edition (FFL Uni) financial literacy programme combines financial literacy training with a RM3,000 cash grant for Malaysian youth from low-income households.
We are asking a simple but important question: does having both knowledge and financial support change how people make decisions about their future?
For young people entering adulthood, these decisions can be particularly consequential. The cash grant may free up some mental bandwidth for longer-term aspirations. It may allow young people to save, invest in skills, pursue an opportunity, or simply plan ahead without every decision being dictated by their most immediate financial need.
We do not yet know the answer. But this is precisely the question worth asking.
Financial literacy still matters. But, perhaps its impact depends partly on whether people have the resources and autonomy to act on what they learn.
The goal is not simply to teach people to make better choices. It is to give them enough room to have meaningful choices in the first place.
Chin Jia Wei is a Principal Research Associate at the ASEAN Research Center (ARC), Asia School of Business (ASB), Kuala Lumpur. The views expressed are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of ARC or ASB.
Financial Literacy: When it Matters?
Gen Z employees are lazy.
Gen Z employees are emotional.
Gen Z employees lack respect.
For the past few years, these have been some of the most common perceptions employers hold about Generation Z (Gen Z) employees. This rising generation has often been generalised and positioned as a warning for organisations preparing to welcome what some describe as one of the most challenging generations to enter the workforce.
But what if we have been looking at this the wrong way?
Instead of focusing on why Gen Z employees are different, perhaps we should ask why organisations still expect them to respond to yesterday’s workplace. Gen Z is becoming an increasingly significant part of Malaysia’s labour market, entering a workplace that has already evolved. Both employers and Gen Z have a role in shaping what comes next.
There are a few realities we should acknowledge.
Yes, Gen Z employees have expectations that older generations may find unfamiliar. Some are willing to leave their jobs without securing another opportunity. Many are more vocal about workplace rights, mental wellbeing, and organisational practices. For some, a lack of flexibility is enough for an organisation to be seen as a “red flag”. This reflects broader workforce trends. According to the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF), many Gen Z employees change jobs within 18 months, often due to these very factors.
However, these behaviours are only symptoms of something much deeper. The question is: what drives them?
Much of this can be understood by looking at older Gen Z employees, many of whom entered adulthood during an unexpected period of disruption. They experienced their upper secondary school, college, or university years during the COVID-19 lockdowns, where remote learning became normalised. As a result, many realised that productivity and collaboration could happen beyond traditional workplace structures.
In 2022, an article by the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic also encouraged conversations around mental wellbeing. For Gen Z, being forced to pause during a critical stage of their personal and professional development gave them time to reflect on their future direction. According to the UNICEF Perception of Youth Mental Health 2025 report, Gen Z is therefore more open than previous generations to discussing mental health and seeking environments that support their wellbeing.
At the same time, social media has shaped how Gen Z consumes information. Growing up with short-form video content, such as TikTok and Instagram Reels, has influenced how they engage with content and expect information to be delivered quickly, clearly, and meaningfully.
When lockdowns ended, many organisations naturally wanted to return to familiar ways of working. However, the opportunity lies in recognising that moving forward does not necessarily mean returning to how things were before. It means adapting to what employees need to succeed today.
This is where employer branding becomes important.
As organisations compete for talent, many have strengthened their employer branding to communicate values that appeal to Gen Z employees. When it comes to branding, there is one important principle: people make decisions based on perceived value.
Employees are no different from customers. When an organisation communicates strong values, meaningful work, and supportive leadership, employees see it as an opportunity worth pursuing.
However, the real experience begins after they join. Some employees encounter micromanagement, poor communication, limited development opportunities, and a lack of accountability. When the experience does not match the promise, trust is damaged. Gen Z employees, however, may be more willing to act on that disappointment.
In marketing, this is known as inconsistent branding. Just as customers leave when brands overpromise, employees leave when employers overpromise. Employer branding is not simply about attracting talent; it is about delivering an experience that matches what was promised.
So what can employers do?
The first step is recognising that there is no single formula for managing people. Every employee brings different motivations and expectations. Organisations need to understand their employees with the same curiosity and intention they use to understand their customers.
Just as marketers study audience needs to create better experiences, employers need to understand what enables their people to perform and thrive. Hiredly’s Work Culture Report 2026 found that 83% of Gen Z employees value trust and autonomy, highlighting the importance of workplaces where people feel trusted to contribute and grow. For some employees, this may mean psychological safety: having the confidence to ask questions, share ideas, and communicate challenges without fear. For others, it may be recognition, belonging, or meaningful feedback that helps them understand their contribution and continue improving. This is reflected in Deloitte’s 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, where 96% of Gen Z respondents reported that having a sense of purpose improves their wellbeing.
Work is still work, and expectations remain important. However, employers often overlook the impact of small moments of recognition and consistent support. When employees feel valued and trusted, they are more likely to grow within the organisation.
Ultimately, this conversation should not be about whether employers need to change or whether Gen Z needs to change. The workplace is evolving because people and expectations are evolving.
Organisations need to create environments where employees feel comfortable communicating their needs, while Gen Z employees also need to recognise that growth does not happen without challenges. Not every difficult situation is toxic, and not every disagreement means an organisation has failed. Building a meaningful career requires patience, resilience, and continuous learning.
Just like great brands, organisations do not succeed by ignoring feedback, nor do they change their entire identity every time someone raises a concern. They listen, adapt where it matters, and stay true to their core values.
Organisations that apply the same curiosity they use to understand their employees like they understand their customers, will be better positioned to attract the next generation of talent. Gen Z is not a generation without ambition. They are a generation looking for workplaces where they can contribute, feel valued, and succeed.
Nuruzzahraa Mohd Raznan is a Research Communications Manager, Asia School of Business, and Master’s graduate in Marketing. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Asia School of Business.
The Employer vs. Gen Z: Who Needs to Change?
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim recently launched the Malaysia Digital 2030 (MD2030) blueprint, envisioning Malaysia becoming an “AI Nation” by 2030. It invokes a “whole-of-nation” strategy and states that harnessing AI is no longer optional but an inevitability that needs to be managed so that it “works for people”.
How Do We Measure Success?
Malaysia is not short of plans with lofty visions. Where we often fall short is in evaluating our direction and re-strategizing where necessary. Part of the problem, as many have pointed out, lies in implementation. But another part begins at the planning stage itself, particularly in how success indicators are set.
MD2030 states that “success is not about how many programmes are announced. It is about whether people experience better services, businesses become more productive and Malaysia builds stronger digital capability”. Unfortunately, the nine high-level targets identified in the plan do not fully reflect this aspiration.
Seven out of the nine targets are based on performance in global rankings. There are at least three reasons why this is not helpful. First, one can climb up a ranking simply because others perform worse, not necessarily because it has achieved material improvements. Second, when a target ranking is not met, one can attempt to escape accountability by attributing it to the progress of others. Third, the metrics behind these rankings do not always capture on-the-ground realities and can also be “gamed”.
The remaining two targets are a 30% share of the digital economy to GDP by 2030, and an annual growth rate of 1.6% in the Malaysian Well-Being Index (MyWI). The former does not clarify which other sectors’ shares are expected to shrink correspondingly, which parts of the digital value chain will drive this growth, or how it reflects genuine productivity gains. Meanwhile, the latter is difficult to attribute directly to digital transformation, given the many other factors that influence well-being.
The more specific sub-targets under each of the seven thrusts in the plan appear to suffer from the same issue: vague, unmeasurable, (perhaps) unrealistic, tangential, or open-ended — the opposite of the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals we are all familiar with.
What Is a Plan For?
This brings us to a bigger question: what is a national plan for? Ideally, a national plan should articulate a country’s grand strategy and action plans for a particular vision. It should offer clear direction to public agencies, businesses, and citizens — for example, what part of their operations should change, what new compliance requirements to expect, what funding windows might open, where to invest, and what lifestyle’s adjustment to prepare. It should tell organizations how to order their priorities, allocate their resources, and manage their risks. It should offer predictability and guide coordination and collaboration.
But little of this can be gathered from MD2030. The plan remains rather abstract despite pointing to generally desirable visions. This is regrettable, given that the plan promised to lay out how we move “from vision to execution, turning ambition into a more practical delivery plan for the next five years”.
What Can We Do, Then?
To be fair, so far, at the times this opinion piece is written, only the summary document of MD2030 is publicly accessible, so the fuller details may be more specific. Ideally, the full plan should have been made available at launch. But as an exercise, let’s assume the details are still being worked out, and ask: how can MD2030 be translated into SMART-er goals?
Let’s start with a specific context: Malaysia is increasingly urbanized. That alone poses myriad challenges in urban planning, housing, transportation, public health, waste management, and service access, to name a few. At the same time, Malaysia is also committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as early as 2050. Digital transformation can, in some ways, offer solutions to these challenges. But it requires high-quality, usable geospatial data that is easily accessible to various parties, across government agencies, businesses, academics, civil groups, and advocates — the “whole-of-nation” that MD2030 emphasizes. This is not yet the case in Malaysia. So what goal can be set, as an example?
Specific: Build an interoperable, open geospatial data platform providing highly demanded or valued non-sensitive geospatial datasets under an open license that can be used by anyone. Provision of the datasets should be mandated by law to guarantee enforceability and predictability for businesses, especially local SMEs such as startups, who may design their business models around the availability of this data.
Measurable: An open data bill mandating the provision of such data, with relevant guardrails to mitigate potential risks, should be tabled in Parliament, say, within the next three years, alongside the development of the necessary infrastructure.
Achievable: Drafting and tabling a government bill is within the executive’s control, even though whether the bill passes or requires amendment is less certain. Besides, precedents exist — the EU’s Open Data Directive, for instance — showing that such legislation is both achievable and workable in practice.
Relevant: Such a bill is relevant to ensuring continuous access to open geospatial data, which in turn can drive digital innovation in both technology and business models. Without a reliable data foundation, businesses have little certainty to invest in building on top of it.
Time-bound: Specifying when the bill will be tabled gives businesses and public agencies a fixed point to plan around, rather than an open-ended promise that can be quietly deprioritized. A clear timeline also promotes accountability. It allows progress, or the lack of it, to be tracked — the same standard MD2030 asks of itself when it says success should not be judged by announcements.
From Ambition to Action
While the above is just an example, it illustrates the kind of detail an action plan should ideally contain. It is not meant to diminish the ambition behind MD2030. But ambition alone will not get us there. What will do is the diligence to translate that ambition into targets that are specific, accountable, and grounded in the everyday realities. I hope that the fuller version of MD2030, when it is made available, reflects this level of detail. Because in our encounter with AI, we need to be SMART-er first.
Ashraf Shaharudin is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center for Technology, Strategy & Sustainability (CTSS), Asia School of Business (ASB), Kuala Lumpur. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of CTSS or ASB.
Malaysia Digital 2030: Let’s Get SMART-er
KUALA LUMPUR: Just under a decade after graduating its first MBA cohort, the Asia School of Business (ASB) has entered the global stage, debuting as 23rd in Asia and within the top 180 MBA programmes worldwide in the QS Global MBA Rankings 2027. This milestone follows closely behind ASB’s achievement of AACSB accreditation, an essential eligibility criterion for participation in the ranking that paved the way for this inaugural entry.
While global league tables are traditionally dominated by institutions with decades of history, ASB’s swift entry reflects the immediate international standing of its academic model. The result also places ASB as having the second highest ranking MBA programme in Malaysia.
ASB also demonstrated particular strengths in employability, diversity and value for money, ranking among Asia’s top 25 across all three dimensions.
Its strong diversity performance reflects the international character of the MBA, while achieving a perfect score for student gender balance and near perfect score of 95/100 for international faculty.
ASB was established in 2015 by Bank Negara Malaysia in collaboration with MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan).
It was designed to challenge traditional business education. Rather than relying on passive classroom lectures or theoretical models, the ASB MBA experience is built on immersive, practice-first learning.
This is made possible through its Action Learning & Integrative Management Lab, featuring hands-on projects for host companies across Asia, where students solve real-world, cross-functional business challenges from the start of their journey.
Furthermore, the Mindset Lab offers a programme rooted in behavioural science and focused on developing personal resilience, adaptive leadership and self-awareness.
Securing #2 position in Malaysia, it gets top 25 rankings in employability, diversity and value for money
It also enables global exposure with regional field studies through Global Industry Experience (GIE) alongside an extended residential immersion at MIT Sloan in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This multi-faceted foundation reflects ASB’s broader collaboration with MIT Sloan, an institution ranked #1 globally in the QS Global MBA Rankings 2027. By bridging MIT’s innovation ecosystem with hands-on practice in Asia’s emerging markets, ASB equips students to lead across complex global environments.
Speaking on the ranking debut, ASB CEO and president Prof Joseph Cherian, said:
“When we started ASB, the goal was simple but ambitious: build a business school in Kuala Lumpur that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best in the world, guided by an ethos of ‘Global Inquiry, Local Heart’.”
“Seeing our debut in the Asia’s Top 25 MBA Programmes and earning recognition for our strengths in employability, diversity and value for money proves that this practical, immersive approach works.”
“It’s a testament to our faculty and, above all, our students who step into the market fully equipped to navigate real-world challenges.”
Students benefit from the ASB MBA experience built on immersive, practice-first learning.
Beyond the MBA, ASB graduates can continue their learning through pathways at globally renowned institutions including MIT Sloan School of Management, Yale School of Management, Cornell University and the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. These opportunities span management studies, advanced management, business analytics, and executive leadership.
Originally published by The Sun Education.
ASB Debuts Among Asia’s Top 25 MBA Programmes
Fuel subsidies are causing a fiscal crisis, with petrol and diesel subsidies comprising more than 10 per cent of Malaysia’s federal budget. While government spending prioritises fuel subsidies, private sector investment in the green energy transition is accelerating — especially in renewable energy and electric vehicles, which receive very modest tax incentives.
As a net energy exporter, fuel subsidies have long been embedded in Malaysia’s politics. Periods of high energy prices have historically led to an increase in subsidies, which were largely offset by higher income from royalties, petroleum income tax and dividends from state-owned oil company Petronas. But this logic is breaking down due to falling petroleum revenue and rising subsidy costs. Malaysia’s oil and gas production has also stagnated since the 2010s while its economy — and with it, domestic energy demand — has kept growing, narrowing the surplus between what the country produces and what it consumes at home.
Between 2022 and 2024, federal petrol and diesel subsidies were equivalent to 48–59 per cent of the income received from Petronas and the petroleum income tax. While the subsidies can be justified in light of cost-of-living concerns, Malaysians with higher incomes tend to receive a larger share due to their higher energy consumption. Fuel subsidies also undermine the government’s ability to spend elsewhere. As a result, the private sector appears to be leading investment into renewable energy alternatives.
These investments are driven in part by the Corporate Renewable Energy Supply Scheme (CRESS) launched in July 2024, which allows large energy buyers — such as data centres and manufacturers — to buy renewable energy directly from suppliers. Solar power projects with at least four hours of storage also receive lower grid access charges, mitigating the effects of fluctuations in renewable energy supply on grid stability. As of January 2026, 1.3 gigawatts in new renewable energy generation capacity has been announced under CRESS, with a further 4.2 gigawatts under negotiation.
With state-owned utility company Tenaga Nasional Berhad announcing new tenders for 2.5 gigawatts of large-scale solar and 1.25 gigawatts of battery energy storage systems, Malaysia will likely continue to surpass its renewable energy targets. Malaysia exceeded its renewable energy target in 2025, primarily driven by accelerating private investment in solar power. Local investment analysts remain optimistic about the sector’s growth and profit potential.
The success of CRESS shows the potential for private sector investment in renewable energy without subsidies. Yet the main obstacle to solar energy displacing fossil fuels lies in the design of existing power markets, which are dominated by vertically integrated, monopolistic players. Competition is mostly limited to the power generation industry, which is mostly made up of fossil fuel plants supported by long-term power purchase agreements.
This is the result of a centralised and inflexible energy system, a model still prevalent across Southeast Asia. The expansion of renewables is better supported by more flexible and competitive arrangements. While grid stability is a concern for rapid renewable energy deployment, this can be mitigated by different market-based incentives, such as a requirement to incorporate battery energy storage systems into renewable energy projects.
Consumer appetite for the energy transition is strong, but considerable potential remains untapped. Electric vehicle registrations increased fivefold in April 2026 compared to the same month a year earlier, with 9272 new electric vehicles being registered. Yet electric vehicles only accounted for one in seventeen new vehicles on Malaysian roads, showing substantial room for growth.
Similarly, Malaysia’s rooftop solar installation accounted for 40 per cent of total installed solar capacity. This still represents only a fraction of Malaysia’s total rooftop solar potential, less than 5 per cent of which is being used. Malaysia’s renewable energy deployment rates continue to lag behind several of its ASEAN peers, with new government restrictions on imported electric vehicles threatening to slow adoption even further.
Alongside policy reforms such as CRESS, scaling back fuel subsidies would enable renewable energy to compete on purely economic terms, unlocking further private sector investment. The savings delivered by subsidy reform would also give the government the fiscal space needed to effectively address cost-of-living concerns and ensure a just energy transition.
Pieter E Stek is Senior Lecturer and Faculty Director of the Center for Technology, Strategy and Sustainability at the Asia School of Business, Kuala Lumpur.
Renato Lima-de-Oliveira is Associate Professor of Business and Society at the Asia School of Business, Kuala Lumpur.
The views expressed are solely those of the authors and do not represent the official positions of the Asia School of Business or any affiliated institutions.
Originally published by East Asia ForumMalaysia’s Fuel Subsidies Slow Its Green Transition
THE ASIA SCHOOL OF BUSINESS MAKES LANDMARK DEBUT AMONG ASIA’s TOP 25 MBA PROGRAMMES
ASB secures #2 position in Malaysia with top 25 rankings in employability, diversity and value for money
KUALA LUMPUR, 17 September 2026 – Just under a decade after graduating its first MBA cohort, the Asia School of Business (ASB) has entered the global stage, debuting at #23 in Asia and within the top 180 MBA programmes worldwide in the QS Global MBA Rankings 2027. This milestone follows closely behind ASB’s achievement of AACSB accreditation – an essential eligibility criterion for participation in the ranking that paved the way for this inaugural entry.
While global league tables are traditionally dominated by institutions with decades of history, ASB’s swift entry reflects the immediate international standing of its academic model. The result also places ASB as the #2 MBA programme in Malaysia.
Beyond its overall ranking, ASB demonstrated particular strengths in employability, diversity and value for money, ranking among Asia’s top 25 across all three dimensions. Its strong diversity performance reflects the international character of the MBA, while ASB achieving a perfect score for student gender balance and near perfect score for international faculty:
- Strong Employability and Performance: Driven by robust career outcomes and strong connections with the corporate world.
- Entrepreneurship: Driven by a strong cohort of alumni launching successful new ventures.
- Exceptional Global Diversity: Scoring 100/100 for student gender balance and 99.5/100 for international faculty.
Building World-Class Business Education in Kuala Lumpur
Established in collaboration with the MIT Sloan School of Management in 2015, ASB was designed to challenge traditional business education. Rather than relying on passive classroom lectures or theoretical models, the ASB MBA experience is built on immersive, practice-first learning:
- Action Learning & Integrative Management Lab: Hands-on projects for host companies across Asia, where students solve real-world, cross-functional business challenges from the start of their journey.
- Mindset Lab: A unique programme rooted in behavioural science focused on developing personal resilience, adaptive leadership, and self-awareness.
- Global Exposure (GIE & MIT Immersion): Regional field studies through Global Industry Experience (GIE) treks, alongside an extended residential immersion at MIT Sloan in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This multi-faceted foundation reflects ASB’s broader collaboration with MIT Sloan – an institution ranked #1 globally in the QS Global MBA Rankings 2027. By bridging MIT’s innovation ecosystem with hands-on practice in Asia’s emerging markets, ASB equips students to lead across complex global environments.
Reflecting on the Milestone
Speaking on the ranking debut, Professor Joseph Cherian, CEO, President, Dean and Distinguished Professor of the Asia School of Business, shared:
“When we started ASB, the goal was simple but ambitious: build a business school in Kuala Lumpur that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best in the world, guided by an ethos of ‘Global Inquiry, Local Heart.’ Seeing our debut in the Asia’s Top 25 MBA Programmes and earning recognition for our strengths in employability, diversity, and value for money proves that this practical, immersive approach works. It’s a testament to our faculty and, above all, our students who step into the market fully equipped to navigate real-world challenges.”
Clear Post-MBA Pathways
ASB’s hands-on curriculum provides direct springboards for career advancement. Beyond the MBA, ASB graduates can continue their learning through pathways at globally renowned institutions including MIT Sloan School of Management, Yale School of Management, Cornell University and the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. These opportunities span management studies, advanced management, business analytics, and executive leadership – enabling graduates to deepen their expertise, broaden their global perspective, and strengthen their leadership capability and international networks. Beyond immediate career entry into multinational corporations, strategy consultancies, and high-growth ventures, graduates benefit from exclusive post-MBA institutional pathways.
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ABOUT THE ASIA SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
Global Inquiry, Local Heart. Established in 2015 by Bank Negara Malaysia in collaboration with MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan), the Asia School of Business (ASB) is committed to developing transformative and principled leaders who create a positive impact in the emerging world and beyond. ASB offers Executive Education, Micro-Credentials, PhD in Management, MBA, Executive MBA (EMBA), and the world’s only Master in Central Banking (MCB). To learn more about the Asia School of Business, visit asb.edu.my, or connect via LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
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The Asia School of Business Makes Landmark Debut Among Asia’s Top 25 MBA Programmes
KUALA LUMPUR 15 Sept — Malaysia perlu memberi tumpuan kepada transformasi pekerja dalam Belanjawan 2027 bagi memastikan mereka bukan sekadar menguasai kemahiran baharu, malah menyesuaikan diri dengan perubahan kecerdasan buatan (AI) dan teknologi automasi, kata Asia School of Business.
Jelasnya, daya saing ekonomi Malaysia bukan hanya bergantung kepada keupayaan menarik pelaburan dan menerima pakai teknologi baharu, tetapi turut kepada keupayaan tenaga kerja tempatan menyesuaikan diri dengan perubahan peranan serta peluang pekerjaan.
Menurutnya, kerajaan perlu mengutamakan pelaburan modal insan bagi membantu pekerja memperoleh kemahiran baharu, beralih kepada peranan baharu dan bekerjasama dengan teknologi yang semakin berkembang.
“Teknologi mengubah cara bekerja, tetapi persoalannya adakah pekerja kita bersedia berubah,” kata Timbalan Ketua Pegawai Eksekutif dan Timbalan Dekan Penyelidikan dan Akademik Asia School of Business, Profesor Madya Ekonomi serta Pengarah Fakulti ASEAN Research Center, Melati Nungsari.
Tambahnya, Malaysia sudah membuat pelaburan besar dalam infrastruktur dan pendigitalan, namun pendekatan sama perlu diberikan kepada tenaga kerja bagi memastikan rakyat terus mencipta nilai dalam persekitaran pekerjaan yang berubah.
Mereka mencadangkan insentif cukai kepada majikan melaksanakan program peningkatan semula kemahiran yang lebih bermakna, dengan insentif dikaitkan kepada hasil seperti peningkatan produktiviti, kemajuan kerjaya dan pertumbuhan gaji, bukannya berdasarkan jumlah jam latihan semata-mata.
Pada masa sama ujarnya, penggunaan levi Human Resource Development Corporation (HRD Corp) perlu diberikan lebih fleksibel bagi menyokong golongan profesional pertengahan kerjaya, pendidikan eksekutif serta bidang baharu termasuk AI, transformasi digital dan kepimpinan.
“Kami turut menggesa kerajaan membantu syarikat mereka bentuk semula pekerjaan, bukannya sekadar menggantikannya apabila AI dan automasi diperkenalkan, termasuk melalui insentif bagi pelan peralihan tenaga kerja yang merangkumi penempatan semula dan latihan semula pekerja,” katanya.
Ujar Asia School of Business, kerjasama antara industri dan institusi pendidikan juga perlu diperkukuh bagi mengenal pasti kemahiran baharu serta membangunkan program lebih pendek dan praktikal yang boleh bertindak balas dengan pantas terhadap perubahan keperluan industri.
Cadangan itu turut berdasarkan pengalaman bersama rakan korporat dan kerajaan menerusi program pendidikan eksekutif, yang menunjukkan permintaan semakin meningkat terhadap kemahiran kepimpinan, kefahaman digital dan keupayaan AI gunaan ketika organisasi melalui transformasi tenaga kerja.
Matlamat utama jelasnya, bukan sekadar melatih lebih ramai pekerja, tetapi memastikan rakyat Malaysia terus mampu mencipta nilai apabila sifat pekerjaan berubah, sekali gus menyokong pertumbuhan ekonomi bernilai tinggi dan mampan menerusi Belanjawan 2027.
Originally published by Newswav and DagangNews
Belanjawan 2027 digesa fokus bantu pekerja hadapi perubahan AI dan automasi
Originally published by The Edge.
Passing the Torch
Guest: Alexander Eng (Associate Professor), Asia School of Business
More businesses are letting AI make decisions that directly affect customers, including how they handle complaints. But does a bot apology land the same way as a person’s?
Alexander Eng, Associate Professor at Asia School of Business, tells us what an effective AI-powered complaints system should actually look like, from giving customers a real channel to flag or push back on a decision, to the mistake recognition and acknowledgements that customers want to hear.
Listen to the full interview below.
Originally published by BFM.
Designing an AI That Knows How to Say Sorry