Support System for Entrepreneurial and Small and Medium Ventures in ICT Sector: Case of the Technopreneurship Development Program (TDP) Flagship of Malaysia’s Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Project - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 232

(TDP). The final sections present the TDP program as a support system to support
the development of entrepreneurs and SMEs in the ICT sector.
2 Background to the Development of the Multimedia
Super Corridor Project
Malaysia's path toward an IT-literate and knowledge society is a part of contin-
uous government policy to chart the country's economic future since its inde-
pendence in 1957.
The success story of Malaysia becoming a ''tiger'' nation is largely due to the
government's determined effort to transform the society from a predominantly
agrarian one where the economy focused on rubber, palm oil, and petroleum to an
industrial one with a significant manufacturing sector, focused on electrical,
electronic, and other sectors. While earlier policies were formulated to bring
Malaysia forward from a commodity-based economy to an industrial one during
the 1990 s, the planning for transition to an information society and that to a
knowledge-based economy (see Fig. 1 ) with a focus on the ICT sector was started.
The Vision 2020 was introduced for becoming a developed country by the year
2020 and among various other initiatives; the National IT Agenda and the Mul-
timedia Super Corridor were launched toward meeting the objectives of the Vision
2020.
Fig. 1 Vision 2020- fast tracking the nation's transition source: NITC Malaysia, access,
empowerment and governance in the information age, building knowledge societies series,
volume 1, NITC Malaysia, NITC Malaysia publication, 2000