Speaking to Dato' Abdul Wahab Abdullah, CEO and President of MIMOS Berhad, one feels the energy, urgency and vibrancy emanating from the lean 53-year-old. Indeed, as the person tasked by the government to shake MIMOS out of its stupor, he needs boundless energy, optimism and a sense of mission to reignite MIMOS and drive it towards achieving its mission of being the leading R&D organisation for ICT in Malaysia.
Abdul Wahab joined MIMOS three years ago on July 1, 2006, with all the right credentials. He had cut his teeth on the corporate world with Motorola, where he rose through the ranks to become the first Malaysian to head its Penang R&D facility in 1993. Indeed, Abdul Wahab came into MIMOS all fired up but found that while he was ready to run, the organisation only had its walking shoes on.
"But you cannot blame them. They had no direction. They did not know what they did not know. They were not challenged. But since then, we had filed for 191 patents, with half of these submitted by the researchers who were here before I joined. When I looked at the profile of the people back then, I saw that they were good guys. They just needed direction, to be shown the right way and given the right tools."
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