THE ROW OF heritage shop houses along Lebuh Acheh fronts a revolutionary school for new technologies. Forward School is the brainchild of tech aficionado Howie Chang. It is aimed at equipping aspiring tech professionals with industry-ready skills required in the fast-moving tech sector.1 It also offers coworking and coliving facilities for start-ups, scale-ups and freelancers.
Prior to Chang’s return to Penang in 2017 as a consultant to the Penang state government in nurturing its start-up ecosystem, he spent almost two decades abroad. Chang furthered his studies at the Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore and worked as an application engineer in an MNC for two years. Later, he made the switch to start-ups like Viki and RedMart because he appreciated the small and nimble environment they offer.
“We are not short on talents with good ideas in Malaysia. What is lacking however is the skillset.” Chang attempts to narrow this talent gap through the School’s 24-month-long, full-time programme in Applied Software Engineering, or NitroDegree. Following graduation, students are matched with one of Forward School’s hiring partners, with a guaranteed minimum salary of RM3,000. Twenty-two hiring partners, including ViTrox, Exabytes and Cytron Technologies, have since pledged their support.
