Orgasmic Moments - New Indicators of Progress

If only Prime Minister Najib cares to measure how many orgasmic moments we have in a year. Isn't it our happiness and well-being the KPIs that matter most? Not GDP! Here's why.  
1.   Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong -- a premise he supports with intriguing research, and explains in his accessible and unexpectedly funny book, Stumbling on Happiness. Dan Gilbert believes that, in our ardent, lifelong pursuit of happiness, most of us have the wrong map. In the same way that optical illusions fool our eyes -- and fool everyone’s eyes in the same way -- Gilbert argues that our brains systematically misjudge what will make us happy. And these quirks in our cognition make humans very poor predictors of our own bliss.

2.   Jack Welch, who is regarded as the father of the “shareholder value” movement that has dominated the corporate world for more than 20 years, has said it was “a dumb idea” for executives to focus so heavily on quarterly profits and share price gains. His comments, made in an interview for the FT’s series on the future of capitalism, come as the economic crisis has caused a radical rethinking by many leading executives and policymakers.

3. “Gross National Product counts air pollution, and cigarette advertising and . . . the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play . . . the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life wothwhile.” Robert Kennedy, 1968.

The above three topics may seem totally unrelated. However, upon putting my radical rethinking hat while considering Prime Minister Najib’s key result areas and gov’t KPIs in relation to measures of progress of Sarawak people, these three subjects are indeed, totally related. Governments, businesses and citizens must focus on what really make us happy.

Sarawakians must now set out a radical proposal to the new state government to guide the direction of modern Sarawak and the lives of people who live in them. In contrast to the conventional narrow focus on economic indicators, we must call on the new state government to directly and regularly measure people’s subjective well-being: their experiences, feelings and perceptions of how their lives are going, as a new way of assessing societal progress.
Some 40 years ago, in my kampong, my parents and siblings lived better, healthier and happier lives, despite no electricity, no roads and none of today’s modern necessities. We cooked over wood fire, got our water from the cool mountain stream and plenty of harvests from the farms.

Today, the rivers and streams have fewer fishes, we use too much pesticides in the farms, we live too much on credit with our education, house and car loans and we have to work harder to pay many bills and to cope with higher and higher costs of living. In all, I’m more miserable than I was 40 years ago.

The roads and electricity supply in the modern kampong today are not making our planet any better. In fact, these modern amenities only serve to increase our carbon footprint. We’ll be leaving to the future generations, a planet that’s degenerated and too costly to clean up. Our Malaysian education system is failing our children and educating them out of their natural creativity. And why can't the government hospital in Bau provide the same quality of clinical outcome as the Gleneagles Hospital or Cleveland Clinic?


Not only our beloved Sarawak, but the whole world is facing a breakdown of communities, environmental degradation, global warming, continuing poverty, and climbing rates of hunger. It is the perfect opportunity to reconsider development, progress, and purpose in terms of what is truly most important in life. Development is under scrutiny as a cycle of more production for more consumption to boost gross national product. There is an urgency to reconsider development in a broader, holistic manner and reclaim the concept of progress as genuine desirable change.

Economists, policymakers, reporters, and the public rely on the GDP as a shorthand indicator of progress; but the GDP is merely a sum of national spending with no distinctions between transactions that add to well-being and those that diminish it.

Mike Pennock from Genuine Progress Indicators (GPI) Atlantic argued that measures such as Gross National Happiness provide a guideline for developing a framework of national accounting where suitable monetary value can be placed on assets such as the environment and voluntary work. Thus costs and benefits can be calculated and accounted for in a balance sheet, and policymakers in turn cannot overlook vital aspects of human, social, and natural capital.

Some pioneering visions of alternative progress have emerged in Asia, chief among them the concept of Gross National Happiness as coined by Former King of Bhutan Jigme Wangchuck. Gross National Happiness has four pillars: the promotion of equitable and sustainable socioeconomic development; preservation and promotion of cultural values; conservation of the natural environment; and establishment of good governance. Gross National Happiness values are measured by tracking wellness in seven domains: economic, environmental, physical, mental, workplace, social, and political.

Currently there are two parallel global movements. The first can be characterized by the World Economic Forum, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, supporting traditional notions of development. The second is the World Social Forum, Gross National Happiness, and allied movements that seek to redefine progress.

The new Sarawak state government, as a mainstream policy-making body, can be more sensitive to alternative approaches and start to measure Gross National Happiness and translate the indicators and data into public policy.

If Sarawak’s new policymakers measure what really matters to people—health care, safety, a clean environment, and other indicators of well-being—economic policy would naturally shift towards sustainability and real progress and happiness for all Sarawakians.

References:

Redefining Progress: Genuine Indicators of Progress

National Accounts of Well-being

Oxford University Human Development Initiative

Everyone Wants Sex, But Not Everybody Have It

Malaysians who find themselves affording less than their contemporaries overseas have distorted and inefficient markets, lack of competition, low wages and a weak ringgit to thank for their poor purchasing power, which in the case of KL, is only 34 per cent that of New York.

Despite government assurances stating that inflation is under control, Malaysians are becoming increasingly restive over the cost of goods in relation to wages, especially those who are able to compare the corresponding price-to-wage ratios in developed economies.

Malaysians who have experienced working and living abroad often experience sticker shock when they come back and see prices in KL.

“Oh my God, a Tiramisu is RM15!” said Calvin Lee, a Malaysian who has lived in Sydney, Singapore and now London, referring to what cafes in KL are charging for a slice of cake as compared to about GBP5 (RM25) in London.

Aidi Zalman, a consultant who studied in the UK, told The Malaysian Insider that salaries in London could go much further than KL.

He had worked part-time as a waiter in London and noted that a single day’s wages of about GBP50-60 was already enough for him to buy a pair of branded shoes and even a low-end iPod, a concept unthinkable for local waiters.

“GBP100 can feed two apartments of students for a week,” he said. “Here you can spend RM100 and get hardly anything.”

“I hate it when politicians make stupid statements like Malaysia is cheap,” said Edward Seah, an engineer who has previously worked in Singapore and the US. “Prices might seem cheap when you convert it to US dollars yes, but then we should also convert our salaries to US dollars.”

Victor Wong, a Malaysian expat in Sydney, said that Australians get more mileage out of their money.

A report by Swiss bank UBS AG shows KL residents have to work 22 minutes to afford a loaf of bread as compared with 18 minutes in Los Angeles.

He gave the example of clothes where he said he can get a good quality shirt for about AUD100 but would need to spend about RM200 to get similar quality in KL.

Wong pointed out that even Asian food could be more affordable for those living in Sydney than KL.

“You pay RM15 for a bowl of soup noodles in KL shopping centres but only AUD10 in Sydney shopping centres,” he said.

The 2010 Prices and Wages report by Swiss bank UBS AG show that residents in KL have only 33.8 per cent the purchasing power of their counterparts in New York, 42 per cent that of London, 33.7 per cent that of Sydney, 32.6 per cent that of Los Angeles and 31.6 per cent that of Zurich.

The same study showed that on average, KL residents have to work 22 minutes to afford a loaf of bread as compared with 18 minutes in Los Angeles, 16 minutes in Sydney, 15 minutes in Tokyo and 12 minutes in Zurich.

The figures grow much worse for imported items. To buy an iPod Nano, a KL worker would have to labour a whopping 52 hours as compared with just 9.5 hours in Los Angeles and Sydney, 12 hours in Tokyo and nine hours in Zurich.

A check on salaries and prices in selected developed country cities by The Malaysian Insider showed that despite being touted as one of the world’s least expensive cities, KL residents pay as much or even more for chicken, broadband, cars and mobile phones as a percentage of their income.

Communications, for example, is one area where Malaysians are paying notably more than residents in developed countries even after currency conversion.

A 5Mbps broadband package costs RM149 in KL while in London, a 10Mbps package would cost GBP13.50, in Melbourne a 5-8Mbps package costs AUD40 and in New York, a 7Mbps service costs USD41.95.

Those who want to buy an iPhone 4 in KL, meanwhile, would have to pay RM1990 with a basic 24-month contract while in London, residents can get an iPhone 4 for just GBP199 with a basic 24-month contract and in Singapore, it costs just SGD210 with a basic contract.

Maybank Investment Bank chief economist Suhaimi Ilias said that what is important is local perception and not official inflation figures which claimed that the inflation rate in Malaysia was only 1.7 per cent last year.

“I think on the ground, not many people feel we are cheap,” said Suhaimi. “They feel that the cost of living is high regardless of what the inflation figures are.”

He added that inefficiency and lack of competition are contributing to the higher prices in Malaysia.

“I can’t understand why a motorcycle should have to cost RM6,000-7,000 and a car like the Perodua Viva should cost over RM30,000,” he said.

RAM Holdings chief economist Dr Yeah Kim Leng said that cars are one of the sectors where the Malaysian market suffers the heaviest distortion.

Despite being touted as one of the world’s least expensive cities, KL residents pay as much or even more for basic items as a percentage of their income.

A Honda Civic in KL costs about RM115,000, or 20 times the average monthly salary of an auditor.

In Melbourne and London by comparison, a Honda Civic costs AUD25,000 and GBP19,000 respectively, or only about three times the average salary of an auditor in those cities.

The high cost of cars is part of the reason that Malaysians have leveraged themselves to a record 76 per cent of the country’s GDP.

Bank Negara statistics show that at the end of last year, 20 per cent of Malaysian household debt was due to cars, an asset which depreciates over time.

Yeah also said that the ringgit is undervalued and distorts the country’s purchasing power for imported goods.

“We need to ensure prices are right and that there are no market distortions, no subsidies and allow market prices,” he said.

But even if the ringgit is allowed to rise, there is no guarantee that savings would be passed on to consumers. The ringgit is now hovering at RM3.02 to the US dollar but Goldman Sachs predicated yesterday the currency could hit RM2.98 to the US dollar in the next three months.

When The Malaysian Insider contacted the director of wholesale and retail at government think tank Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu), Ravidran Devagunam about the higher prices Malaysians pay for branded goods, he acknowledged that some retailers will maximise profits on luxury items not readily available in Malaysia but said that the government is “unable” to compel them to discount their prices even after the abolishment of import duties as luxury goods and apparel are not controlled items.

“However, we believe that market forces and consumer education will eventually force a price reduction of these goods over time,” he said.

The Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations Secretary General Mohd Shaani Abdullah said people should question the prices that they are currently paying.

“Consumer protection will only come about when people make noise,” he told The Malaysian Insider when contacted. “Only then will politicians act.”

Source: Malaysians plagued by poor purchasing power

By Lee Wei Lian, Yow Hong Chieh and Melissa Chi

Malaysian Insider April 19, 2011

Analysts say the undervalued ringgit distorts the country’s purchasing power for imported goods.

How Quality of Life is as Poor as Sex Life

For some time now, economists have become comfortable with catchwords that we once associated with the speech of psychologists. Even as they speak about money, profits and balance sheets, they no longer blush when they mention such things as emotional well-being, self-esteem and spiritual vitality.

And Malaysian politicians and technocrats have caught up fast in using these jargons. They are no longer talking about “standards of living” or “costs of living”, but rather the “quality of life”, as if it means anything to the poor Malaysian wage earner struggling to provide his family with three square meals.

Malaysia’s good old days are really not that old. Middle-aged Malaysians can still remember when you could have coffee with a friend for 20 cents. (We used dollars and cents then.) And if you had an extra 50 cents in your pocket, you could each have a roti canai or a bowl of mee or kuay teow. Your bus fare probably cost you 5 or 10 cents, and you could talk forever on the phone for 10 cents if it was a local call. If you earned around $500 a month, you could own a car.

In short, life used to be good. There was quality in it.

Today, an urban family earning a household income of RM3,000 a month would be lucky to survive the costs of food, utilities and transport. Try shopping with RM50 and see what you can take home to your family.

And now rumours are bouncing around that another round of price increases is in the offing.

Meanwhile, the issue of minimum wage is still in the dock.

Serious problem

Nothing has probably changed since the 2007 survey that showed that more than 57.8% of Malaysian households earned less than RM3,000 and 70.7% earned less than RM4,000.

Many villages in Sabah and Sarawak are still not connected by road and more than a quarter of households there do not have electricity. Furthermore, at least 50,000 families in the state are in need of new or restored houses.

In urban areas such as the Klang Valley, public transport remains a serious problem. Infrastructural coordination is poor and “networking” exists only in our dreams.

Municipal councils seem to be blind to the serious shortage of car parks, a shortage that takes its toll on housing estates and shopping centres and turns even the well-bred into inconsiderate motorists who have made a habit of double and even triple parking.

The rat population is increasing at an alarming rate in residential areas as night markets and hawker stalls sprout up everywhere and uncollected garbage pile up into mountains.

Quality sleep

Highways and expressways that cut across residential areas are causing so much noise that we can only daydream about having quality sleep.

It was once said that in Malaysia, as elsewhere in Asia, the affluent tend to surround themselves with comforts befitting their status, shutting out the plight of the less fortunate around them.

But times have changed. There are problems everyone suffers, regardless of income. The decaying environment, traffic congestion and rising crime rates make life lousy even if you are rich. Bad governance and inept public administration affects everyone.

In 2005, Malaysia was ranked 36th in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Quality of Life Index. By 2010, we had fallen to the 85th position.

If the quality of our life is not improving, should we change our lifestyle to suit our economic position or should we change the ruling regime? Perhaps Malaysians should be thinking instead of the quality of the government that they want.

source: Free Malaysia Today.

Hot Agnes Monica at Bidayuh Gawai Festival?

How Bidayuhs Measure Up Today

If Agnes Monica's hot statistics are to reveal anything, it would be that many rural Bidayuhs also do not have enough clothing to cover their bodies. But Agnes Monica's exposure is nothing compared to UNDP statistics that reveal communities living in rural areas of Sarawak are among the worse off when compared to the rest of the country, and often face considerable hardships including securing land rights and other basic rights to development.

Many of the state’s communities such as the Bidayuh have, relatively low human capital, lack ready access to basic amenities and facilities, and because the physical infrastructure is underdeveloped in the areas where they live, they remain poorly connected to markets.

We know that for a strong Sarawak, we need quality human capital across races including minority groups such as the Bidayuh. However, our education system today is failing us. Quality health care fail to reach the majority of Sarawakians who are in the rural areas. GDP growth is concentrated only in major towns, not in the rural areas where most Sarawakians are.

The Bidayuh and other Dayak people have seen escalating erosion to their land tenure held under Sarawak Native Customary Rights (NCR), from first massive logging, and then giant plantations and dam building have robbed many Dayak communities of their land. Without land, the physical survival and the survival of their cultural traditions and ethnic identity are threatened.

Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact Foundation (AIPP) secretary-general Joan Carling urged Malaysia to take up the recommendation by other countries such as Mexico, which raised the issue of poor human rights record with regards to indigenous communities during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) hearing in Geneva last year.

She said indigenous groups in Malaysia had long been fighting for their right to their native territories, and these struggles continue today. Although Malaysia adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in September 2007, there has been no real change on the ground to address the land-grab issue affecting many indigenous people, such as the Bidayuh.

Bidayuhs are a minority indigenous group in Sarawak. There are about 169,000 Bidayuhs, who constitute some 8% of the state’s population. Most of them live in Kuching, Padawan, Serian, Bau and Lundu areas in the 1st Division.

Bidayuh today remain one of the marginalized indigenous minority groups in Malaysia and represent a population of those living below poverty line. Like the other Dayaks, living mostly in the vast rural areas of Sarawak, many still live without basic amenities such as roads, jetties, clinics, treated drinking water, and electricity. Time for them has stood still since independence in 1963.

Issues of the Bidayuh Today
While the rest of the majority races in Malaysia progress in terms of socio-economic and education, the Bidayuh remain in the fringes of development and some Bidayuh communities live in poverty. Critical and urgent issues facing Bidayuh include:

1. Land are not titled and unaware of their rights under common law. Native Customary Rights land has been taken over by the state government for sale and development at any time. As Bidayuh are still dependent on subsistence farming, titled land is necessary to progress to modern farming.
2. Bidayuh participation in both the traditional and modern businesses are poor. This is hampered by limited business opportunity, highly dependent on public spending and government projects and poor networking. Some small sized firms made some inroads in small-scale construction sectors. However, none appears to be able to sustain their business due to easy entry and hence are very competitive.
3. Bidayuh form a large portion of the hardcore poor in Sarawak, living in poor housing with insufficient food supply and lack of access to quality health care, communication and transportation.
4. As most Bidayuh live in the rural areas, they are receiving the poorer quality of education than what people in the urban schools are getting. While good early childhood education is critical to the development of children, rural children are not getting pre-school development that urban children are getting. This leaves Bidayuh children to continue to lag behind others in education.
5. The high number of Bidayuh children not getting entrance into public institutions of higher learning, give rise to more Bidayuh children being left behind in the knowledge economy.

What Bidayuh Need to Achieve Equal Progress
There is widespread resentment among Bidayuh that they continue to be marginalized and continue to be left on the fringes of development. To achieve equal progress with other races, equal opportunities and privileges must be given to Bidayuh. The following are critical for the state government to provide the Bidayuh in order to achieve progress:

1. Immediate halt to indiscriminate acquisition of untitled native land by the state government.

2. Expedite the issuing of titles to all native land.

3. Allocate native land that have been designated as state land to Bidayuh families as temporary occupation for a minimum of 60 years for the purpose of modern farming. Land not developed within 3 years are to be taken back and allocated to other families.

4. Establish a well-funded and appropriately staffed Farming Program for Bidayuh that will among other things, do the following:

• Provide financial aid to Bidayuh families to develop their land for modern farming. Access to the aid must be easy and mechanism for repayment must also be easy.
• In addition to providing financial aid, the government must also provide quality professional assistance to upgrade the knowledge and skills of Bidayuh families on modern farming.
• Encourage Young People to Become Farmers: The Farming Program will establish a new program to identify and train the next generation of farmers. The program will also provide incentives to make it easier for new farmers to afford their first farm.
• Encourage Organic and Local Agriculture: The Farming Program for Bidayuh will help organic farmers afford to certify their crops and will also promote regional food systems.
• Strong Safety Net for Family Farmers: The Farming Program for Bidayuh will provide family farmers with stability and predictability and strengthen producer protections to ensure family farmers have fair access to markets, control over their production decisions, and transparency in prices.
• Support Small Business Development: The Farming Program for Bidayuh will provide capital for family farmers to create value-added enterprises, like cooperative marketing initiatives and farmer-owned processing plants. They also will establish a small business and micro-enterprise initiative for rural Bidayuh kampongs.
• Improve Rural Education for Bidayuh: From the moment our children step into a classroom, the single most important factor in determining their achievement is their teacher. To improve the quality of education that Bidayuh children are receiving, the state government must provide incentives for talented individuals to enter the teaching profession, including increased pay for teachers who work in rural areas.

The government must create a Rural Revitalization Program to attract and retain young people to rural Bidayuh kampongs. More quality community colleges should be created and increase research and educational funding for community colleges in Bidayuh areas. Early childhood development centres must be established in Bidayuh kampongs and staffed by only trained and qualified professionals. The government must ensure all rural Bidayuh children have access to pre-school; provide affordable and high-quality child care that will promote child development and ease the burden on working families.

The government must ensure competent, effective teachers in rural schools that are organized for success. The government should provide service scholarships to recruit and prepare teachers who commit to working in underserved Bidayuh dominated districts. To support teachers, the government must foster ongoing improvements in teacher education, provide mentoring for beginning teachers, create incentives for shared planning and learning time for teachers. To retain teachers, the government must support career pathways that provide ongoing professional development and reward accomplished teachers for their expertise. An initiative must be taken to help eliminate teacher shortages in hard-to-staff areas and subjects, improve teacher retention rates, strengthen teacher preparation programs, improve professional development, and better utilize and reward accomplished teachers.

6. Increase the number of seats for Bidayuh students in public institutions of higher learning: In order for the Bidayuh community to come to equal progress in education with other races, more places should be allocated for the Bidayuh students in local public colleges and universities.

7. Improve Health Care for Bidayuh Communities: Rural health care providers are often less experienced and do not have access to the latest medical and healthcare practices in order to deliver the best clinical outcome. Rural folks have to come to Kuching city to get better medical treatment and that is often when illness become more serious. The government must increase rural access to quality care by promoting health information technologies like telemedicine and staff rural clinics and hospitals with more experienced and better trained physicians and nurses. A Nurse-Family Partnership should be established to all Bidayuh, first-time mothers each year. The Nurse-Family Partnership provides home visits by trained registered nurses to Bidayuh expectant mothers and their families in Bidayuh kampongs.

8. Establish a Bidayuh Business Development Assistance Program: As Bidayuh community lags far behind in participation in business and entrepreneurship, the Bidayuh need specific business development assistance. The assistance program will include allocation of government infrastructure projects to Bidayuh community, allocation of business premises in strategic locations and access to financial aid and grants. Rural infrastructure projects must be allocated to local Bidayuh contractors.

9. Expand Access to Jobs: The government must invest in transitional jobs and career pathway programs that implement proven methods of helping low-income Bidayuh succeed in the workforce. The government must also create a program to directly engage disadvantaged youth in job opportunities to strengthen their communities, while also providing them with practical skills in important high-growth career field.

10. Establish At Least 20 Promise Bidayuh Kampongs: The government must create at least 20 Promise Bidayuh Kampongs in areas that have high levels of poverty and low levels of student academic achievement in Bidayuh dominated districts. The Promise Bidayuh Kampongs have a full network of services, including early childhood education, youth development efforts and after-school activities, to an entire kampong from birth to college.

The government should work with community and business leaders to identify and address the unique economic development barriers of every one of the 20 Promise Bidayuh Kampongs. The government will provide additional resources to address community needs.

The government, by implementing all of the above with full commitment on a sustainable basis, can help bring the Bidayuh community on equal progress with other races. As Bidayuh progress, Sarawak and the nation thrives. The nation will be strengthened for further prosperity.

The Hottest Stimuli For Sarawak's Economy

What's more stimulating than revealing, eye-catching sizes? To citizens of nations today, nothing is more stimulating than the revelation & size of economic stimulus being formulated by their governments to minimize the impact of global recession.

But like the stimulus of revealing sizes, short-term economic stimulus cannot sustain the feel-good moments.

The 12 new dams to be built in Sarawak under SCORE could well be the erectile dysfunction of a 12 inch possession. Sarawakians concerned with the well-being of the future generations to come must seriously think about what is really needed.

I am recommending that the hottest stimuli for Sarawak's future prosperity is investment in innovation, not in another dam. Failure to do so, future Sarawakians will be beggars in their own land despite the wealth of natural resources today. Because besides Korea, Japan and Taiwan, China & India will be important centers of innovation in the coming decades, leaving Sarawakians to live on scraps in the region.

Not only are both China & India producing a rising share of key technological innovations, but they are also pioneering innovations in business models that allow their companies to prosper in low-income markets. These new models tend to be capital light while heavily leveraging technology. The companies employing them produce goods and services at surprisingly low cost and use the vast scale of home markets to create new technology standards. These are practices that companies in neighboring nations will need to watch closely as they attempt to grow their competitiveness and as they meet new competitors from both countries in global markets.

Education levels are rising in both countries. China and India have world-class technical universities and produce a steady flow of talent at the top of the world’s academic pyramid. In addition, both cultures reward entrepreneurial risk taking. Innovators in China and India possess immense drive and desire to succeed. Their commitment and focus on business execution make them notable entrepreneurs on the global stage. It helps that both China and India allow successful people to retain much of the wealth they create, though both governments expect contributions back to broader society from those who become millionaires or even billionaires.

What is the situation in Sarawak? Firstly, our education system is failing us, educating us out of our inherent creativity. As the government builds infrastructure in the rural areas, GDP growth remains in the urban. Indigenous technologies is unheard of, not even in the farming or timber sectors which are the main economic activities in the state. In Sarawak, revenues from natural resources can be allocated to the benefit of seeding innovations rather than being pocketed by a few individuals.

India's flexible local entrepreneurs are creating new models that bake in low-income levels. ICICI Bank is a good example. Making intensive use of technology, it has created a banking model with capital outlays that are one-tenth those of banks in the developed world. ICICI reaches deeply into India’s rural areas using mobile ATMs and simplified Internet banking. It runs a booming and profitable business in remittances at fee levels that undercut Western Union by 70 percent. Health Management Research Institute (HMRI), meanwhile, uses technology to revolutionize medical services. Paramedics rove through rural areas in vans coordinated by GPS. Routine ailments can be efficiently diagnosed with the help of algorithms; more difficult diagnoses can be provided by remote medical experts via a video kiosk in each van. HMRI can already serve over 50 million patients.

China selects and invests in what it believes are next-generation sectors—biotechnology, electric vehicles, and clean energy. These are markets where China’s domestic demand could lead the world. The government’s goal is to accelerate the market’s development and nurture national champions. In telecom, where the Chinese market is already one of the world’s largest, the government is encouraging national standards that it hopes will eventually define the global industry.

Can Sarawak build & sustain China's & India's innovation pace and eventually move to the next level of technological innovation? Absolutely. The talent is there, as are capital and effective new government that encourages it. With stronger protection and rewards for intellectual property — a likely development as international companies begin to license technology from Sarawakian entrepreneurs — the stage will be set for the next step forward.

Sarawak must wake up to the realization that investing in innovation is more critical than the 12 dams. The most innovative countries — which will also be the highest earning in the future — will be those that embrace a model of “innovation economics,” which places technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship at the center of economic policymaking. Successful nations will not be content to wait for innovation to happen or expect it to occur as a byproduct of other activities, such as rural development or dam building.

On the contrary: the new leaders will search out innovation and actively create an environment that nurtures it. That is the job description of Sarawak's new leaders when Pakatan Rakyat takes over from BN.

Sources: Alessi, IDEO, NASSCOM, ADB, Global Institute for Human Capital Development