Organic growth of innovation vs Centralisation of institutions, MRT

Innovation

1. Malaysian Government under Najib has a funny way of doing things. When things dont work, they undermine the whole system by duplicating the role. Take EPU. Planning without execution, botched megaprojects etc.. create PEMANDU.. hooray lots of megaprojects and EPPs for all ETP, which will meet the NKEAs being tracked by NKRAs. RMK10 throw in the dustbin. MOSTI not paying attention to the I, fine - create UNIK.
2. Leadership is about getting the right people on the bus, and making sure the wrong people gets off the bus. Especially in situation requiring hard decisions. Constrained resources. People respect you for doing the hard decisions, but you must explain yourself. The waffling, flip-flopping nature of Pak Lah's administration is now replaced by waffling, you-can-get-away-with-anything administration of Najib. At least, there are decisions. Wrong, but decisions nonetheless.
3. Now this creature of UNIK. What does it do first? Come up with an Akta that centralises innovation powers in its hand. The la-la hypothesis is that the Chief UNIK is a know-it-all and a snap of his fingers will cause the whole of Malaysia to tremble in fear and be innovative. Sounds like a Stalinist / Hitlerist maneouvre to me.
4. Why cant ppl in Malaysia be trusted to do the right things through incentivising innovative practices, and then discouraging stupid acts of giving some inflated contracts to unqualified people? Why cant the best global talents be facilitated into the country and lead and mould best practice entities, and hoping there is enough tech absorption by creating the environment for people to accept best practices? Why cant we do away with just giving some pieces of the cake to people we know who can talk their way out of trouble but probably lacks the competence and gumption to make a difference? Where are the innovative entrepreneurs (not the innovative rentiers) that the country has produced so far, and give them a free and facilitating hand to expand? What are incentives to offer to private capital to come in?
5. Instead, UNIK will have powers to 'streamline' existing funds and appoint innovation ambassadors. Fine, there are opportunities to improve, but these are incremental improvements, not game-changers as those outlined in Item 4. If UNIK can only do incremental stuff so that the game-changer explodes, I'm afraid innovation will still occur in Malaysia, but it will be inspite of UNIK not because of it.
6. Innovation will thrive when the environment allows it to. Lifelong education, primary, secondary, tertiary. Entrepreneurial training - engaging Entrepreneurs in Residence to mentor successful ventures. VCs and PEs need the deal pipelines in place, and this can be done by co-locating them into major innovation centers - and sorry, but somehow that means not in KL. Target sectors should be able to access global markets, but sorry, knowing a couple of MNCs may not be sufficient. Someone needs to tap local agencies with global reach, and large MNCs to open up market access. And this is no small matter if we look at some of the areas that we are interested in - large pharmas - US, Europe and India, industrial biotech - US, China, Europe, Brazil, ICT - mainly emerging markets, other sectors as relevant.  
7. If after no 6, what we do is centralisation, I'm afraid someone is hopelessly deluded. Innovation ecosystem and culture - and centralised in one single agency because the multi-agency committee / ministry failed to execute its function before. Perhaps this can be dismissed as just another Malaysian cynic. Maybe so. But if people up there are serious to do good, Rakyat Didahulukan and all that stuff, this is one hell of a strange way to carry out your functions - relying on one smartarse to perform what a ministry has failed to do.

MRT

1. It's shameful that the absurd costings and silly alignment that the EPP for MRT as shown in their open day kind of shows the shallowness of the proposal. The project feels and looks rushed. Accepting an unsolicited proposal from the private sector and after protests appointing the same company as a project manager, and then promising a Swiss Challenge is merely an afterthought. Just one question. Where is the bloody masterplan incorporating the whole transport planning for the Klang Vally and its adjacent satellite towns. If there isnt one, shame on PEMANDU, SPAD and everyone related to this proposal! Federal Highway will still be jammed because Subang Jaya isnt part of this planning. Where are the traffic forecasts? Where is the costing? Where is the inputs from the planning agencies from all the local authorities? Who is driving this - SPAD, PEMANDU, or GAMUDA? Who bloody cares about the increased property prices?
2. Worst thing (or Best of all) about all of this is a Citizen-watchgroup calling themselves TRANSIT has a proper masterplan and proposal to do this. Malu weh.