AWS collaborates with Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education’s JPPKK to build next-generation AI workforce

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized how we work and is reshaping the workforce of the future. However, a recent study conducted by Access Partnership for AWS revealed that 81 percent of Malaysia’s employers struggle to find the AI talent they need, despite nine in 10 stating that hiring AI-skilled talent is a priority for them.

To address the nation’s AI skills gap, AWS and Jabatan Pendidikan Politeknik & Kolej Komuni (JPPKK), an agency under Malaysia’s Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), teamed up to introduce new training initiatives targeting both educators and students to uplift Malaysia’s TVET (technical and vocational education and training) community.

JPPKK leading Malaysia’s efforts to democratize cloud and AI skills 

JPPKK became an AWS Authorized Training Partner with Digital Capability in September 2024 and is collaborating with AWS to deliver cloud and AI training for Malaysia’s future workforce at scale. Under the partnership, AWS will provide 140,000 students across 36 polytechnics and 105 community colleges in Malaysia with access to more than 200 curated AWS cloud and AI online courses.

Since the bespoke AWS Responsible for AI course for JPPKK learners was launched in September 2024, more than 1,000 students have signed up to learn about responsible AI principles, generative AI challenges, and best practices for designing ethical AI systems.

Students have also used Amazon Bedrock Guardrails, a service that automatically evaluates both user input and model responses to detect and help prevent restricted content. For example, an ecommerce site owner can design its online assistant to avoid using inappropriate language.

“Malaysia is on a transformative journey driven by technology and national goals like the MyDigital Blueprint. Our technical and vocational students, who are the backbone of our future workforce, are critical to this progress,” said Y.M. Tengku Besaruddin Shah bin Tengku Yaakob, director of the instructional and digital learning division (BIPD) at JPPKK. “We are proud to deepen our close collaboration with AWS on this journey to accelerate AI adoption in polytechnics and community colleges, through initiatives like the AWS DeepRacer event in 2023 where over 500 students of all skill levels gained hands-on machine learning experience.”

The inaugural AWS POLYCC LLM League

To upskill students in generative AI skills, JPPKK and AWS, together with Jabatan Digital Negara (JDN), an agency responsible for coordinating and implementing national and public sector digitalization projects under the Ministry of Digital, collaborated to organize the POLYCC Large Language Model League (LLM League) 2024 competition. This is an immersive program that accelerates the path for learners to gain practical skills in building fit-for-purpose generative AI solutions through model customization, fine-tuning, and prompt engineering in a gamified setting.

The AWS POLYCC LLM League 2024 final team participants pose for a group photo with representatives from AWS and JPPKK.

The first-of-its-kind to launch in Malaysia, and part of a series of competitions run by AWS across Southeast Asia, POLYCC LLM League 2024 was held in Putrajaya from August 11 to September 22 with 1,500 students and lecturers from polytechnics and community colleges across Malaysia participating.

Through the competition, participants were trained to leverage AI and machine learning (ML) to create culturally-relevant conversational experiences by learning fundamental AI/ML concepts, and understanding the importance of high-quality data to build effective generative AI solutions tailored to Malaysia’s diverse linguistic and cultural landscape.

For example, by using Amazon SageMaker JumpStart, an ML hub with foundation models and pre-built algorithms and ML solutions that can be deployed with just a few clicks, participants learned practical techniques to fine-tune their LLMs to address open-ended questions responsibly, with the aim of outperforming large generalized LLMs.

After two contest rounds over six weeks, POLYCC LLM League 2024 culminated in a finale where the best teams showcased their AI and ML models and solutions, by answering seven questions which were judged by a professional AI jury and live audiences.

One of the questions was “List the main strategies for the POLYCC Artificial Intelligence Reform (PAIR) Agenda in TVET Digital”, where teams’ refined models were required to answer based on TVET’s Digital book. The trained models were evaluated on three components, including cultural nuance (40 percent), technical performance (40 percent), and real-world applicability based on live audience voting (20 percent).

The team from Politeknik Mukah Sarawak, consisting of two lecturers and two students, emerged winners with their fine-tuned model which scored the highest for the comprehensiveness and accuracy of its replies.

The winning team of AWS POLYCC LLM League 2024, Politeknik Mukah Sarawak, poses for a photo with JPPKK and AWS representatives. The winning team comprises lecturers Muhamad Azizi bin A. Rahman and Roziah binti Zainal Abidin, and students Mohamad Shafiq bin Mohd Sablee and Navashen Svraaj A/L Mogan.

Encik Suhaili Bin Aleh, director of Politeknik Mukah Sarawak said, “I am proud of what our team of lecturers and students achieved. We are hopeful that this inspires other schools and learners to continue pushing boundaries and leveraging emerging technologies like AI in driving innovation to shape a better future for Malaysia.”

Mohamad Shafiq bin Mohd Sablee, student representative from the winning team, said, “We are thrilled and honoured to have won POLYCC Large Language Models League 2024. This competition has given us valuable experience in using AWS Cloud computing and AI technology to train our LLM.”

“Cloud and AI are crucial to Malaysia’s digital future, and at AWS we are prioritizing making that future a reality by working with the government to build Malaysia’s next-generation AI-skilled leaders to unleash the nation’s culture of innovation and productivity,” said Peter Murray, country manager of AWS Malaysia. “As an empanelled Cloud Service Provider under the Malaysia government’s Cloud Framework Agreement, AWS is using our expertise in developing industry-leading cloud and AI solutions, and delivering effective learning mechanisms such as the AWS LLM League, to help students acquire generative AI skills in a fun and engaging way. We are excited to advance JPPK’s mission of building a skilled technical and vocational workforce as Malaysia forges ahead in its digital transformation journey.”

Since 2017, AWS has trained more than 100,000 people in Malaysia in cloud skills. With global organizations racing to recruit, train, and develop the best AI talent, programs like AWS POLYCC LLM League, and the contribution of industry partners like JPPKK, will be critical to building a vibrant and competitive national workforce that drives sustained growth across all sectors.