MALAYSIA Venture Capital Management Bhd (Mavcap) is calling for some modifications to the existing University Act, especially with regard to the intellectual property (IP) policy, to encourage moreinformation and communications technology (ICT) research work within the campus fraternity.
Its chief executive officer Mohd Azwar Mahmud said under the Act, universities own 100 per cent of all IP created under their roof, thus providing little motivation for students, professors and scientists to commercialise their ideas.
According to him, the situation is counter-productive to Malaysia’s aim to develop technopreneurs to fuel the growth of the local ICT industry, regarded as an important engine of growth for the nation.
As such, Mavcap is urging the Government to look into the issue and modify the Act to address who owns what and how the rights should be divided.
“We submitted a white paper addressing the issue to the National Economic Action Council (NEAC) in April. We have done a few presentations and the Government has scheduled a meeting with all of the universities in the September and October time frame, which will give us a chance to articulate our stand,” Mohd Azwar told Computimes last week.
He said it is key for the Education Ministry to also be involved to stir up thought and interest among local universities on the issue.
“The change in jurisdiction would enable universities to get venture capitalists and the industry to be involved in innovation from the very beginning, rather than work on something in isolation, resulting in technology that is totally irrelevant to the market.”
Mohd Azwar added that many notable universities in the United States, Britain and Singapore have changed their IP policies in the last decade, and have since contributed to the development of the technopreneurial phenomenon like the Silicon Valley, hence it is high time for Malaysia to follow suit.
“Mavcap, in the meantime, is creating a special programme to address the IP issue in universities within its newly launched Cradle Investment Programme (CIP),” he said.
He had earlier launched Excite the Entrepreneur (E2), a joint education initiative with the Technopreneurs Association of Malaysisa (TeAM), at the Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology.
Mavcap is providing RM50,000 to fund the programme which is being managed by TeAM.
Designed to be highly interactive, E2 is aimed to provide awareness and promote entrepreneurship among local university and college students as opposed to the traditional preference for careers in the public and private sectors. E2 is targeted to be rolled out to 20 per cent of the 800 institutions of higher learning in the next 12 months. TeAM and Mavcap expect to address at least 60 participants in each university or college wherever E2 is presented.
The programme organisers believe the programme can serve as a potential source of technology ideas for the RM100 million allocation under Mavcap’s CIP.
CIP is aimed at attracting quality local professionals to strike out on their own to form a cluster of ICT companies that will offer a comprehensive and cohesive spectrum of capabilities to enterprises, governments, small and medium-scale industries, and end users.
