THE DIGITAL PROMOTER COACHING PROGRAMME

SPEECH BY THE CHIEF MINISTER OF PENANG

YAB TUAN CHOW KON YEOW 

THE DIGITAL PROMOTER COACHING PROGRAMME

16 AUGUST 2020 @ PENANG SENIOR DIGITAL RESOURCE CENTRE

 

Tony Yeoh
CEO of Digital Penang Sdn Bhd

Dato’ Lawrence Cheah
President of ROSE Charities Malaysia and Co-Founder of Penang Senior Digital Resource Centre

Vincent Yeoh
President of Proteim of Cooperative of ROSE Charities Pulau Pinang Bhd

The Digital Penang Team, invitees from ROSE Charity and the Penang Senior Digital Resource Centre.

 

Media friends

Good afternoon to all of you.

Recently, on my Facebook page, a man in his 70s reached out to me. In his Facebook comment, he said that there are many senior citizens like him, who are struggling on a daily basis with digital transactions ranging from parking, to e-wallets and even receiving e-statements from his bank account. This gentleman is not alone; there are many others who share his sentiments too.

Penang as a state is working towards a new frontier of digitalization. However, we must all make sure that we reach that frontier together and that no one is left behind, especially those who find it hard to adapt to this new normal.

And, that is why we are here today. It can be said that there is a 3-stage learning process in the path towards digitalization.

The first phase is adoption, where people are introduced to the various digital applications and technologies.

The Digital Coach Scheme and Digital Promoter Scheme that we are launching today known as #DahDigital is aimed at doing just that. All part of a greater effort by the Penang state government, and along with other campaigns such as e-Bayar, these are all targeted at aiding and introducing digital solutions to the public.

As we have seen in various case studies before where in the beginning, new solutions are usually adopted easily by enthusiasts or specialists who are ahead of their time. Adoption being a slow process, it is only after the heavy use of outreach programmes to the public that such solutions become normal.

Under the Digital Promoter Scheme, in various locations across Penang, promoters would go and educate as well as to help members of the public in this adoption phase.

The second phase is familiarity. After adoption and raising awareness, we are actively looking at changing the lives of our community through workshops and clinics with the Digital Coach Scheme.

In curating this programme, we want to give the community a platform to practise, ask questions, make mistakes and most importantly, to learn. With that thought in mind, these workshops and clinics offered include demonstrations, coaches and tutorials which aim to familiarise and ease our participants to grasp the basics.

Lastly, once we have built confidence in the community, we want to leverage these new skills in innovation. Our intentions are to give the community a method of expressing themselves and to be heard.

Therefore, we are also integrating social media tutorials in our sessions.

Skills like these give our community the opportunity to not only create and express content but to promote their ideas and opinions while gaining exposure. With this campaign and the concerted effort behind it, we carry the hope of seeing our community advancing together and growing in creativity.

Furthermore, this scheme serves to create new jobs for those seeking to apply their skills and to guide others towards being a digitally savvy population. Digital promoters will be hired to approach the public and spread the awareness of digital payments.

These will include a quick sharing of general information on digital payments and answering questions which individuals may have concerning digital payments. In the immediate months, such promoters will be stationed at public markets to support the state’s Cashless Initiative.

As we do, we must all ask ourselves – Are we game enough for digitalization as we make our steps into a whole new world with its new normal and SOPs as our way of life?

The Digital Era is full of excitement with its new and innovative technology. It is necessary for the state of Penang to go digital in order to stay competitive as we advance and explore what lies ahead and awaiting us in this new frontier.

Thank you for your invitation for me to be here and let us all broaden our horizons today.