MINDA is the only dedicated Board of Directors Academy in Malaysia. It was established in 2006 as a result of the Government-linked Companies (GLC) Transformation Programme. They are into their 7th year of operations and on track to be a global player in the development of Directors whilst supporting national development initiative. MINDA takes a holistic developmental approach for Directors to perform to a consistently high standard and imbue them with world-class knowledge, skills and the mindset to shift Board dynamics from compliance to performance.

A project undertaken with a major Malaysia-based diversified multinational company with tens of thousands of employees across 23 countries, at a time when it needed to kick-start an ideas portal for employees to express their ideas. This portal would not only act as a funnel for ideas but also projects and relevant solutions within the organisation’s innovation pipeline. ACC was selected by the company to manage this project after a thorough analysis and comparison of several competitive and specialised systems in the market. The company preferred the competitive pilot pricing, immediate availability, simple user-friendly features and effective interface of ACC’s product as well as the dedication of our team. The platform was up and running in 3 months and most importantly, got the job done well, within the given budget. Since the rollout of the ideas portal, the company has received a lot of positive feedback from employees and has seen steady increase in the portal’s user database. Its top management is now looking into strategies to further increase user engagement on this portal and intends to continue its close working relationship with ACC.

As one of CREST talent initiative, The Great Lab (TGL) was officially launched on march 2014. TGL was originally a student-led initiative to create a platform for talented Malaysians to take up the challenge of coming up with innovative solutions to problems posed by Science, Technology and Engineering based companies or global issues such as socio-economic problem on health, sustainable energy, natural disaster and others. Since the date of its inception, TGL has garnered support from various E&E companies such as Altera, Exiatec, Motorola, Intel, Osram, Silterra, National Instruments, CiTrox, Kontron, Clarion, Penchem and UST Global. To-date, there are more than 40 industry problem statements under the TGL platform, from various disciplines and domain areas such as Embedded System & IoT, IC Design & Test Validation, Opto-electronics, LED and Solid State Lighting Advance Materials & Packaging World-Class Electronics Manufacturing Drones, Driverless & Autonomous Vehicle.

A follow-on project within the larger National Corporate Innovation Index Project. This project, managed by ACC and done in collaboration with Nesta (UK’s Innovation Foundation) and Inngot (a UK IP Consultancy), was initiated to develop a tool to help Malaysian businesses understand their investments, assets, outputs and returns relating to their innovation efforts and intangible assets. The tool focused specifically on uncovering and valuing the contribution of “hidden”  expenditures and intangible investments that companies make to increase their innovation capabilities through in-house-developed software; design; research and development; process improvements; investment in training, management, and leadership development; and marketing efforts that support valuable brand development. When combined with the output of ACC’s earlier work, the tool provides a comprehensive assessment of a given company’s innovation capability, capacity and management.

The tool was subsequently tested with a group of SMEs in Malaysia to explore its relevance for smaller companies. This was done in collaboration with ACCA (UK) that published a report on the outcomes of applying the Malaysian National Corporate Innovation Index to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises.

Read the said report here.

 Gading Kencana Sdn Bhd is a renewable energy services company founded by Dato' Ir Guntor Tobeng and Datin Hasnah Awang. The founders have been steering the company steadily forward from its inception, first in the solar lights market, then progressing to solar and hybrid systems and recently breaking into large-scale solar PV systems with outputs by the hundreds of kilowatts. Turning out 1 Megawatt per 1.5 acre - versus an average worldwide best of 1 Megawatt per 5 acres , Gading Kencana's Kompleks Hijau Solar is, inch-for-inch, the world’s most resource efficient solar farm.

Gading Kencana used our platform when it needed to kickstart an ideas portal for employees to express their ideas. The platform was up and running in just 1 week. Since the rollout of the portal, the company has received plenty positive feedback from employees and has seen a steady increase in the user database. The company's top management is now looking into strategies to further increase user engagement on this portal and intends to continue its close working relationship with ACC.

The IHL-MSC Malaysia Start-up Challenge (i-MSC), previously known as MSC Malaysia-IHL Business Plan Competition (MIBPC), is currently in its 11th cycle. The competition now has a new approach and has broadened its participation requirements as it looks to attract more students to participate in the competition. It also hopes to give students a more hands-on experience before and after their submissions.

The i-MSC provides an attractive avenue for students to solve real problems for real customers. At the same time, they'll also be able to acquire knowledge and entrepreneurship skills. Students who are interested to explore entrepreneurship and have innovative ideas  can be identified through this competition.

Entrepreneurship education in the Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs) have been recognised as essential for increasing graduate employability and combating unemployment amongst graduates. This project was initiated to assess the achievements of Malaysia’s strategic plan for spurring entrepreneurship education in HLIs. ACC engaged with entrepreneurship centres within various HLIs, students (past and present), lecturers as well as key members of corporate and public sector organisations (including policy makers).

The findings for this study were subsequently presented at the 4th UNESCO-APEID Meeting on Entrepreneurship Education in Bangkok in October 2015 by the Head of the Entrepreneurship Unit in Malaysia’s Ministry of Higher Education.

Read about the outcomes of the study here

The National Corporate Innovation Index (NCII) Project was initiated to measure the level of innovation within large organisations (i.e. Public Listed Companies (PLCs) and Government Linked Companies (GLCs) in Malaysia), enabling policy makers to develop data driven policies for driving innovation.
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The ultimate goal was to increase innovation output and raise Malaysia’s rankings on the international innovation scene. During the project, benchmarking exercises were conducted using both Malaysian and international innovation measures to ensure the robustness of the study. The scorecard was subsequently piloted with large organisations across multiple industries to ensure actual applicability. The resulting scorecard provided these organisations with a helpful step-by-step guide on how to progress within their specific innovation journeys. The companies that were involved in the pilot project were:

The project was first launched by the Prime Minister of Malaysia in 2014. The Government agency in charge eventually deployed it to 200 companies within Malaysia. It has since been used to measure innovation within small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia.

Read all about the project launched by the Malaysian Prime Minister:
(1) Najib Introduces NCII to help companies become innovative, - The Sunday News 
(2) NCII to be a badge of honour, says Najib - The Rakyat Post

​The 1MIT Innovation Tournament was aimed at introducing the subject of innovation to students within the Higher Learning Institutions in Malaysia. Its aim was to facilitate and strengthen the interaction between the corporate sector and academia. This was enhanced with a forum between the corporate sector and academia to understand the issues and challenges faced by both parties. 

The project was undertaken with a European MNC that provides engineering technology solutions to the oil and gas industry at a time when it was experiencing a spate of resignations at mid-management level. The rapidly expanding company acknowledged it went through a lot of internal strain trying to align members of its growing millennial workforce with its corporate culture and values.

ACC worked closely with the client’s innovation driven leadership and team to gain a deeper understanding of the key motivators of its millennial talent. Conversation sessions were facilitated with employees across all functions and levels of the company, from the CEO to a newly hired young engineer. The project identified and prototyped innovative ways to engage with younger employees and eventually led to an increase in the company’s employee satisfaction and retention rates.

The project, commissioned by the Malaysian Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), aimed to accelerate the growth of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) companies in Malaysia (specifically SMEs within the ICT sector) through an Open Innovation methodology with a modified structure. This methodology was pioneered by ACC based on our understanding of the challenges within the ecosystem in Malaysia. Suitable MSC companies were identified, trained in our proprietary innovation framework and given guidance on how to propose innovative IT solutions that can deliver value to larger host organisations. This collaborative project successfully accelerated the penetration of such MSC companies into large organisations within a short period.

The aim of the project was to accelerate the growth of MSC Companies (these are SMEs in the ICT sector) through a modified structured open innovation approach methodology. This methodology was pioneered by Alpha Catalyst based on our understanding of the ecosystem challenges in Malaysia. MSC companies, are under purview of the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), a government linked agency tasked with creating a conducive platform and environment to nurture Malaysian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the ICT sector, to become world-class businesses.
Through this approach, selected MSC companies are identified, trained in our proprietary innovation framework and guided, to propose innovative IT solutions that can deliver value to Host Companies (large organizations). This collaborative effort to enhance the innovation ecosystem, between the government agency  -which takes on a facilitative role, large organisations and SMEs, has successfully accelerated penetration of MSC companies into the large organisations, within a short duration.