FOR Malaysia to achieve its vision of becoming a high-income nation soon, the country must view artificial intelligence (AI) as a pathway to mark its global economic presence.
As AI is increasingly becoming an important tool that automates key operations across numerous industries, Penang has embraced this trend through the launch of ‘Experience AI’ programme.
Experience AI is a cutting-edge AI and machine learning programme for teachers and students funded by and developed in collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Google DeepMind.
The programme is supported by the Penang Science Cluster.
Scheduled for implementation nationwide, this programme will engage several states, including Penang, Kedah, Perlis, Perak and Selangor.
The organisers have set their sights on benefitting some 1,000 teachers and 10,000 students across all five states through this programme.
On Feb 7 and 8 this year, PSC and the northeast District Education Offices (PPD) piloted this programme, with involving 56 students and 14 teachers from 14 schools in Penang.
PSC chief executive officer Datuk Ooi Peng Ee emphasised the significance of equipping the students of today with essential AI-related skills to navigate an AI-driven future successfully.
“Technology is growing fast, and the bottom line, AI is truly revolutionary and will impact our lives and industries.
“ I would like to thank Raspberry Pi Foundation and Google DeepMind for providing this wonderful opportunity to our teachers and empowering our young students throughout Malaysia with a solid AI foundation to ride this revolutionary technological wave,” Ooi said in his speech during the launching of the ‘Experience AI’ programme at Wisma Yeap Chor Ee, where PSC is located at.
Meanwhile, the guest of honour, Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow, was truly impressed with the initiative and regarded it as a stepping stone in the state’s efforts to prepare its students and teachers towards a highly competitive and AI-driven future.
“We stand at the crossroads of an AI-driven era. We must recognise its potential to revolutionise industries, redefine jobs, and shape our societies.
“According to a report by Malaysia Center for 4th Industrial Revolution in 2022, AI, particularly generative AI, has the potential to unlock a productive capacity worth US$ 113.4 billion in the Malaysian economy if it holistically adopts AI across all sectors.
“Our young students today need to understand AI and how it will impact them. Students need to know what it is, how it works, its strengths and limitations, how to leverage these powerful tools, the ethical issues involved and future careers in AI awaiting them.
“I am particularly intrigued by this Experience AI programme, which supports teachers in the exciting and fast-moving field of AI and gets the young passionate about the subject,” Chow said in his speech.
Sharing his personal experience, Chow said ChatGPT, an AI-driven system, which he used recently, has the potential to unlock information and create a communication pathway that goes beyond our knowledge and imagination.
Earlier, Buletin Mutiara spoke to several students who had set up booths to showcase their exploration of tools found online to generate AI data most seamlessly and conveniently.
This was part of the pilot project involving the participating schools.
Nur Arissa Humaira Erwan Zammi and Damia Balqis Binti Talat Mahmud, both 15 and from SMK Bukit Jambul, shared their experience of exploring an online AI platform capable of generating music harmonies without requiring any prior knowledge of the subject.
Meanwhile, students from Penang Free School, Foo Wei Hong and T. Aadhithya, both 15, discussed the capabilities of a large language model (LLM), a type of AI programme that can recognise and generate text and other tasks in an instant.
Explaining further about the programme, the rollout sessions (teachers training) across the five states are expected to happen from this month (April) to October this year. Subsequently, the advanced workshops will take place from October to December 2024.
From Dececember 2024 to February 2025, the participating schools will be involved in project development and the video submission process.
In March next year, the schools that have competed and announced as winners will be invited to showcase their projects. Further details regarding the showcase will be shared later.
Also present during the event earlier were Deputy Finance Minister II Lim Hui Ying, state Youth, Sports and Health Committee chairman Daniel Gooi Zi Sen, state Education Department director Abdul Said Hussain and a representative from Google Malaysia, Victor Lam.
Story by Kevin Vimal
Pix by Muhamad Amir Irsyad Omar
Video by Siti Nuratikah Rahmat