Somasundaram Nagappan
Soma is with the Digital Economy Division of MDEC, a federal agency entrusted to develop, coordinate, and promote Malaysia’s digital economy, ICT industry, and the adoption of digital technology amongst Malaysians.
His key role is to lead the establishment and execution of Strategic Partnerships in the areas of Big Data Analytics (BDA) and Internet of Things (IoT).
In addition, Soma’s functions are to develop, recommend and oversee the implementation of policies, strategies, initiatives and programmes that will lead to the proliferation of the usage of BDA & IoT in the private sector and catalyse the adoption & usage of BDA in the public sector as well as build the BDA industry in Malaysia.
Soma was instrumental in setting up the ASEAN Data Analytics eXchange (ADAX), a regional platform that brings together innovative talent development models and showcase the latest BDA technologies. Through ADAX, MDEC aims to pilot advanced data analytics use cases for the ASEAN region and provide a co-working location for BDA start-ups and accelerators, thus positioning Malaysia as a regional BDA hub.