THE Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) will introduce two new flagship initiatives to further drive development of the project.

The flagships – MSC Flagship Centre and Centre for Health Innovation and Medical Enterprises (Chimes) – are expected to be officially launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad next month in conjunction with the sixth International Advisory Panel (IAP) meeting in Cyberjaya.

Multimedia Development Corporation’s senior manager Ng Wan Peng said the MSC centre is slated to be fully operational by the end of next month. It will include the establishment of a MSC laboratory and Creative Development Centre for Virtual Reality and high-performance computing facilities which can be utilised by any interested party from the end users, investors, the public and Government, she added.

“The centre is developed to support all existing flagship applications and is meant for (R&D) research and development activities as a showcase for all flagship applications and new innovations as well as a knowledge repository for best practices and cross-flagship integration architecture standards for the integration of flagships,” she said in Cyberjaya last week.

Ng said Chimes is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of the year, and it will support the telehealth flagship application. It is an R&D centre for healthcare solutions and a platform for proof-of-concept.

MDC’s senior vice president Narayanan Kanan said all existing flagship applications are currently at the evaluation stage, following successful completion of some pilots, for benchmarking prior to full roll out of the flagships.

“As such, at the pilot stages we are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. However, we want feedback as to what areas are lacking and can be improved upon,” he said.

On the progress of the existing flagship applications, Narayanan said the Government Multipurpose Card (GMPC) which integrates applications for MyKad, updating of Road Transport Department and police summonses and Touch n’ Go applications, has been the most successful, with two million MyKads in circulation nationwide.

“In fact, the card has already been exported to Bali, while Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia and Baharin are in advanced stages of discussions with MDC to start pilots in their countries. About 75 per cent of between 20 and 30 heads of Governments in developing countries who visit Malaysia annually have expressed a keen interest to develop MyKads for their countries,” Narayanan said.

He added that the plan is to make the MyKad a de facto Asean card.