By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin
Pix Ikhwan Hashim

BANGI, 3 May 2016 – A constant stream of innovations that can be popularised and commercialised is what drives the economies of developed nations, says Member of the Board of Directors of The National University of Malaysia (UKM) Datuk Dr Ahmed Tasir bin Lope Pihie.

He said in his lecture titled Innovation From The Perspective of Business and Industry, that economies that rely on manufacturing or assembly cannot truly be developed if they remain that way.

“A lot of people can invent, but you must find the commercial value, then you must go forth to create value in business, industry with transactions,” he said at a forum of prominent UKM academics and researchers, officiated by Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation ) Prof Datuk Dr Mazlin Mokhtar, here today.

He said there must research and development of the innovations before they are ready for mass production and the marketplace.

He regards countries with the innovations that lead to commercialisation as more successful than nations which just make things based on ideas of others.

Dr Ahmed Tasir, who is Chairman of The Strand Aerospace Malaysia,  lamented that there is too much emphasis on middle and downstream activities and not enough on  the upstream.

He also sits on the board of Inno Bio Ventures Sdn Bhd, a biotech holding company under the Ministry of Finance Incorporated, and  MARA Aerospace and Technologies Sdn. Bhd.