HUMBLE BEGINNINGS The establishment of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC Malaysia) and Cyberjaya in particular, will enable Malaysians to leapfrog into the Information Age. We hope to create the ideal environment that will attract world-class companies to use it as a regional multi-cultural information age hub. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, during Cyberjaya’s groundbreaking ceremony on 17 May 1997 Every story has a beginning, and ours begins on 2,800 hectares (6,960 acres) of mostly undeveloped land, 40km south of Kuala Lumpur. It is the mid-90s, and Malaysia’s economy has been dubbed one of Asia’s ‘tiger cubs’, thanks to an aggressive 8 per cent growth since 1988—the second fastest after China. The site where our particular story takes place is a former palm oil plantation, one of many swathes of monoculture left over from Malaysia’s agricultural days. As the pages of history turn, we see this land being uprooted and sown with very different seeds, marking a new era in Malaysia. We witness the machinery of development busy laying the foundations of Malaysia’s first intelligent cybercity, and with it, a new hope for the nation. Cyberjaya. A space for startups to create and innovate; for students to pursue dreams of changing lives with technology; for tech giants to make new discoveries; for small businesses to conquer the world one market at a time. For creative, entrepreneurial minds, it was going to be the place to call home.
Tour CIT - Montparnasse
United Nations Human Settlements Programme