Malaysia Commercialisation Year (MCY) Award winners have been announced for 2018. The Malaysia Commercialisation Year Award, which the Malaysia Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment & Climate Change (MESTECC) introduced in 2016, is aimed at recognising, appreciating and motivating local R&D talents to penetrate local and international markets.
This year, MESTECC assessed 212 products in terms of technological and commercial readiness and arrived at 27 finalists who had to pitch their products to a panel of judges. There are 10 winners for the MCY Award 2018, a main winner and a consolation winner for each of five categories.
The QuikHalal app from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) was the consolation winner for the Research Entrepreneur Award. This award recognises an entrepreneurial researcher who has made outstanding contributions to business innovation or has created innovative businesses in Malaysia through technology licensing, startup creation or by providing expertise to support business innovation.
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| Source: MESTECC. The QuikHalal logo. |
As of 2018, the app has 25 local users. UTM plans to further develop the app to support countries with Islamic-friendly hospitality industries like Thailand, Korea, Japan and Indonesia.
As a consolation winner, UTM receives RM50,000, half in cash and the rest in facilitation services such as:
• Design including physical design and packaging
• Accreditation, certification, a technology audit and market research
• Incubation including mentoring
• Advisory services related to product development, financial management and intellectual property; and
• Participation in local and foreign exhibitions.
MCY was first initiated in 2016. As of August 2018, 303 products have been successfully commercialised, accounting for sales turnover of RM290.88 million. The main target of MCY is to boost research, development and innovation (R, D & I) results from local research institutions as wealth generator through commercialisation process. MCY is also a platform to raise awareness of stakeholders and the people about the potential of innovation and commercialisation in raising the nation's revenue.
As part of the MCY Special KPIs, research institutes, universities and related technology development agencies have collectively pledged to commercialise up to 360 products/technologies from various categories by the year 2020.
They are supported by the Second Wave of MCY 2.0 (2017-2019), which focuses on:
- Strengthening the commercialisation ecosystem;
- Expanding cooperation with strategic partners from industry, states and international government; and
- Expanding markets for local research, development, commercialisation and innovation (R, D, C & I) regionally and internationally.