This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on January 22, 2024 - January 28, 2024

When faced with the need to digitalise its operation during the Covid-19 pandemic, an automotive company saw an opportunity to create a platform that could help others, including schools, make the same transition.

In 2021, VX Technica launched its School Transformation Electronic Platform (STEP) to help national schools accelerate their digitalisation process. It currently works with more than 600 secondary schools in Peninsular Malaysia, from the Klang Valley to Penang.

VX Technica is a brand under VX Ventures. The latter started as a sister company to VX Garage Sdn Bhd, an auto parts trading company that mainly focused on the automotive parts trade, supplying directly to consumers, spare part shops and micro franchisees. Both VX Ventures and VX Garage are held under the parent company VX Brands. In 2020, with the imposition of the Movement Control Order (MCO), VX Ventures had no choice but to move its business operation online.

“We were trying to find ways to digitalise our automotive business operation. [It was difficult and expensive to engage] multiple service providers to cater to all of our operational requirements. So, we decided to hire our own developers to build a single system,” says CEO Kevin Raj.

This led to the formation of the VX Technica brand and its e-platform solutions. Founded by Raj and chairman Tunku Aaran Mohamed Tunku Mu’tamir, VX Ventures brought together Raj’s experience in sales and marketing that had honed his skills in designing the user experience and figuring out market trends and Aaran’s background in banking that included experience in finance, human resources and management. The two founders not only learnt from this experience, but also saw an opportunity.

Raj explained that it took a year for the team to build a functional system for its business to run online and quickly realised that other businesses were facing similar issues. This inspired the company to license its platform, called NIAGA, to assist small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as the Cooperative Digital Environment (CODE) in helping cooperatives with their digitalisation efforts while expanding their business.

This eventually caught the attention of public schools and Raj, who knew how much local schools struggled to adapt and digitalise from his own schooling experience, reached out. This eventually led to the creation of STEP.

VX Ventures’ sister company VX Garage is still in operation, utilising the digitalisation foundation from its subsidiary to expand in the online market.

When STEP was set up, it was designed for school cooperatives, partnering with Koperasi Perkhidmatan Pelajaran Nasional Bhd (KOPENAS) to start the programme.

The STEP programme began as an online platform for bulletin boards and digital payments — giving students access to an e-wallet as most secondary school students have smartphones, allowing them to pay for cafeteria food and bookshop items on the platform.

The bulletin board allowed teachers to inform parents and students of school activities, or tell parents what a student would need to bring to class for an activity. This helped to bridge the communication gap between parents and teachers.

As for the student e-wallet, this was inspired by Raj’s experience with pocket money when he went to school. Knowing all too well how the students would be tempted to buy items outside of school, the STEP platform was designed to address this, giving parents greater control over their children’s spending and keeping the money within the school’s ecosystem.

Since then, VX Technica has been working alongside Parent-Teacher Associations (PIBG) to further refine the system. Raj and his team are in constant communication with parents and teachers to gain feedback on changes or even to add new systems according to their needs.

VX Technica has designed STEP mainly for public secondary schools as secondary students would find it easier to use the digital platform than primary school pupils and public schools need such a platform, as opposed to private schools, which are more likely to develop or source their own. Nevertheless, it is seeking to expand to both primary schools and private schools by the second quarter of this year once its hold on the secondary school market has been established, according to Raj.

By end-2023, about 24% of public secondary schools in Malaysia had signed up for STEP. The company will introduce STEP in Perak this month, followed by other states.

STEP is being used by schools in Perlis, Penang, Terengganu, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Johor. Penang and Johor have the most schools that have adopted STEP, with 106 and 167 schools respectively.

As schools enjoy the advancements provided by the platform, teachers and other members of the faculty would sometimes request additional options. “We [have since] received multiple requests directly from schools for additional modules that can assist the school operations in various segments. We then started building STEP into what it is today,” says Raj.

While STEP originally started as an online bulletin board with an e-wallet, VX Technica gradually expanded the platform as it talked to teachers and parents.

“The teachers would be grateful for how more efficient the platform made school administrative duties and send in requests for additional features. This gradually expanded with VX Technica adding the modules that schools requested for,” says Raj.

These included modules that promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by offering interactive resources, virtual labs and other collaborative tools. There is a fee for the additional modules that schools would have to pay, he says, adding that its fee structure is designed to be favourable to public schools. “We have a very flexible approach towards the fee to cover the operational cost.”

The fee is derived from the transaction fee based on sales, sponsorship by any third parties, PIBG and Digitalisation Donation Campaigns. These methods have proved to be sufficient for maintaining the operational cost and still provide a healthy profit to fuel its growth.

The main focus when developing modules was providing equitable access to digital resources for all students, bridging the digital divide as well as fostering digital literacy and cybersecurity skills to ensure students’ safety and preparedness.

VX Technica’s STEP platform currently has modules that cover mobile commerce, school news, bulletin boards, surveys, donations, inventory and cashless payments. Modules are being developed to be added in the future such as attendance, student performance monitoring, teacher reports, online tuition, a PIBG system and social media.

Challenges in the education sector include unequal access to technology, the need for effective teacher training, digital security concerns and ensuring students’ digital literacy and online safety.

With wider digital exposure in a post-pandemic world, Raj knows that more people, even in rural areas, will eventually adopt smartphones. However, he acknowledges that not all parents will have access to the smartphone application, especially in the more rural areas of the country.

“We still provide all information on a website that parents can access. We are also developing an offline mode with scheduled updates,” he says.

With the experience and support from implementing the STEP platform across hundreds of schools in Malaysia, VX Technica seeks to further digitalise schools in the rest of the country with the support of Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).

“We have received great support from various states’ Jabatan Pendidikan Negeri and Suruhanjaya Koperasi Malaysia. We are currently in the process of applying for Malaysia Digital status from MDEC,” says Raj. “We strongly believe such agencies will further help and guide us in developing STEP.”

He explains that the Malaysia Digital status would enable VX Technica to reach out to technology partnerships and gain access to the international market. On top of that, it is aiming for MDEC’s Digitalisation Grant for school cooperatives and is looking at RM5,000 in matching grants for each of the 600 school cooperatives it works with.

From an automotive company to developing a digital platform for other companies and schools, VX Technica is still a young firm but it is growing fast. It plans to offer the STEP platform across Malaysia, and not just in big cities.

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