IT legend Mitch Kapor named adviser to Selangor govt

ARCHIVES 2010

By admin-s On Jul 2, 2010

Lotus 1-2-3 inventor takes post at RM1 a month.

We can succeed, on merit, says Anwar

By uppercaise

MITCH KAPOR, a legend of the personal computer industry, has agreed to be an adviser to the Selangor state government. His appointment was announced by the state’s economic adviser Anwar Ibrahim after Kapoor gave a talk on innovation and entrepreneurship in Shah Alam this afternoon.

Anwar said Kapor, an old friend, was one of several corporate and industrial giants that he and Selangor menteri besar Khalid Ibrahim had approached to help with Selangor’s development plans.

“

Security does not come from secrecy.
Security comes from openness and transparency.

Mitch Kapor

on open-source software’s strength using “a principle equally applicable in other fields”.

“Like Mitch Kapoor and his wife Frieda, who are involved in many worthy causes, they are willing to help — not for power or money, but because they care,” Anwar said, to applause.

Obviously anticipating criticism from opposition politicians, Anwar announced that Kapor had agreed to take up the advisory position at an honorarium of RM1 a month. He also thanked Kapoor for taking the time to give the talk while the couple were on holiday in Malaysia

Kapor’s talk on innovation and entrepreneurship held the interest of an appreciative audience made up of Selangor officials, university students and academic staff and members of the IT industry, keen to obtain the insights of a pioneer of the personal computer industry.

He is most well-known as the designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the spreadsheet, graphics and database program of 1982 that was the first “killer” software application and which led to businesses taking the personal computer seriously.

He is now a director of the Mozilla Foundation, the organisation behind the open-source Firefox internet browser, Wikimedia, the foundation behind the Wikipedia encyclopedia, and of Linden Lab, creators of Second Life, a worldwide virtual reality sensation in which people live virtual lives and take part in activities that mirror the physical world.

Kapor said a pro-innovation society would be built on:

Opportunities for economic and social mobility
STEM education (science, technology, engineeering and mathematics
Ubiquitous, afforable broadband
entrepreneur-friendly culture, tolerant of risk-taking and forgiving of failure
free sharing of information

Kapor pointed out how calculated risk-taking (not foolhardiness) by a few individuals in the computing industry led to innovations that spread widely causing disruptions and upheavals through the industry at successive stages of its growth, thereby creating opportunities for others.

Failure should not be regarded as shameful but part of the learning experience; “failure is not binary”, in his words. Some things worked, others didn’t, and the successful entrepreneur would pick up on the things that worked and move on, he observed.