IT CAME WITH A BANG AND DIED WITH A WHIMPER

(PICTURE OF THE WORLD FAMOUS TAIWAN HSINCHU SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY PARK)
There is a tradition in this country where almost everyone wants to ride the gravy train. Research is treated as a fashion where you jump on the bandwagon or wave of popularity. And everything is glorified with hype sounding names and terms such as rebranding of courses in universities with hype sounding terms such as technology. Its a perpetual re branding exercise with good dollops of marketing and massive politicking.Media blitz and self advertising or promotion rules. And as ABBA puts it "The winner takes it all". But in the end, nothing significant really resulted from all these grand ambitious projects . After all it is just the plain useless old denatured wine in a new bottle

The truth remains as long as there are "politicians" on the decision board to decide which way or priority the nations research, the face of research in this country will always remain in a time warp where nothing moves or changes or the state of research will always be static or re engineering the wheel

TECHNOLOGY PARKS AND INCUBATOR UNITS
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We will now discuss the problems of incubation units and technology parks in Malaysia. Ever since the success of the Silicon valley in USA in spurring technology and its commercialization many nations including Malaysia also try to ride the bandwagon/ While some countries like Taiwan succeeded in establishing the technology parks and proved its viability, there are many other countries trying to have their own imitation technology parks but did not succeed.

Technology parks or incubators are supposed to be the engine of growth which should propel and contribute to the commercialization of the products generated. Technology parks are just not just large swath of lands planted in some large tracts of former rubber or palm oil plantations where you provide roads, buildings, utilities to attract investors

Technology parks are areas of research and technology which help facilitate the translation of viable research or technological projects into economic viability


THE BEST ASSET
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While facilities and support services are important the best asset in any business investment in such parks are BRAINS + IDEAS

THE TRUTH BEHIND SMART PARTNERSHIPS
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Which party is really to gain? In most technology parks it is more a place where the new companies hope to get 'free money' and escape from various forms of tax reliefs
Is the partnership exploitive or one sided?

If this is so then the Technology park fails


THE STATE OF OUR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PARKS
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At least from the internet we can get the following technology parks in Malaysia

TH-NSTC SDN BHD (ENSTEK)
Technology Park Malaysia Corporation Sdn. Bhd.
Seri Iskandar Development Corporation. Sdn. Bhd.
Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP), Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP), Gelang Patah, Johor
Technology Park Malaysia Corpn Sdn. Bhd Kuala Lumpur
Kulim Technology Park Corporation Sdn. Bhd. Kulim, Kedah Darul Aman
Selangor Science Park 1 Petaling Jaya Selangor Darul Ehsan
Malaysian Technology Development Corporation Serdang Selangor Darul Ehsan

The question is how successful are they in meeting their objectives and how do they compare with the technology parks of other countries? Maybe our technology parks are more beautiful in form than substance

It is simply going to ne a waste of money and exercise in futility if these technology parks are not monitored. In the real corporate sectors 'heads must roll' in the event of business failure, but here....well....;)

One thing I have observed in most of these technology parks and incubator units are more into plant tissue culture propagations which I personally think can be done by a trained educated farmer with some basic facilities