- Lot of critical thinking, lot of mentoring, lot of guiding that is happening in the classroom interaction
- Official learning partner to global tech companies & holds accreditation from over 30 global certification bodies
For Trainocate Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a Japan-founded global IT training provider, its 30th year in Malaysia is both a corporate milestone and a chance to use its platform to open doors for underprivileged youth.
Operating here for three decades, Trainocate has grown alongside the country’s tech ecosystem. As Ruby Kaur (pic), managing director for Malaysia, puts it, the company’s journey began in the plumbing of enterprise IT.
“We used to offer a lot of tech infrastructure focused training, especially on networking,” she recalls. “When I came on board as a salesperson, it was all about partnering with global leaders in delivering training on storage, servers, networking etc.”
Over time, the training portfolio evolved with global technology shifts.
“Then over the years, we also transform whenever technology changes,” Ruby says. “We also get our trainers certified based on the vendors’ expertise. From networking we moved to virtualization – and then came the cloud computing era.”
Today, with continued strong corporate adoption of technology, and especially around AI, it is no surprise that Trainocate Malaysia continues to see rising demand from Corporate Malaysia for its services.
“We have been winning a lot of awards [as Partner] with the global tech vendors as we work directly with them,” she says. “Now it’s all about AI, offering training for the tech vendors customers and end-user training.”
The scale is not small. Trainocate has 17 training rooms, with class sizes ranging from eight people in smaller rooms to 20 in larger ones. Classes often mix staff from multiple organisations — “people from different banks can be in the same class.”
To remove friction for regulated industries like banking, Trainocate also provides the hardware. “We provide the laptops, we provide everything, because some of them who work for banks, they cannot use their personal laptop,” she explains.
Ruby says bankers often prefer mixed classes rather than sessions limited to their own colleagues. “Everybody learns from the questions others ask to the trainers.”
The reality of virtual training versus in-person
Ironically, despite years of predictions that virtual learning would reduce the need for physical training, Ruby is seeing the opposite: a resurgence of in-person demand.
“People do want to come for physical, off-site training sessions,” she says. “You lose that entire experience, that interaction that happens. There’s a lot of critical thinking, a lot of mentoring, a lot of guiding that is happening in the interaction with the physical trainer.”
Vendor alignment is central to the model. Trainocate is an official learning partner to a number of global tech companies and holds accreditation with over 30 certification bodies. Crucially, it uses official vendor content to deliver its training rather than self-created syllabi.
“This is very important to the value we bring. We will follow what the vendors’ best practice is,” Ruby says. Trainers must also be vetted and certified by vendors.
“The trainer has to pass certain exams and to clear specific training requirements before sitting for an assessment.”
13,000 trained on Coursera; 116 youths for Jump Start 30
The company’s 30th year is also being marked by impact at the margins.
That commitment began during Covid-19, when Google offered 30,000 Coursera licences under a programme Ruby ran with the Selangor Youth community organisation, SAY. She initially asked for just 100 licences, unsure if youth would take to e-learning. A pilot meant for 20 people drew 1,000 applications.
By the end, Trainocate alone had trained almost 13,000 people.
“Just Trainocate alone, among the partners, trained almost 13,000 people, and it’s still ongoing,” Ruby says.
The experience with SAY, which supports B40 youth, Orang Asli and other underserved groups, shaped how Ruby wanted to mark the company’s anniversary. Instead of a gala dinner, she proposed a charity-led initiative.
The result is Jump Start 30: three cohorts totaling 116 youth from children’s homes, B40 communities and community colleges.
Participants receive structured AI and digital skills training at the company’s facilities, with hardware access and instructor-led guidance. Ruby says the aim is to help them move from passive consumers of AI-generated content to creators with practical skills.
The programme culminated on Sat June 27 with a high tea and graduation celebration. “The students were the VIP,” she says proudly.
Growth beyond Klang Valley
Even as it leans into community work, Trainocate is expanding its physical and geographic reach.
In Malaysia, Ruby is close to opening a Northern centre after two years of trying to serve the region remotely.
“We tried for the last two years to do business there, but we get a lot of pushback as we did not have a direct presence,” she says. “So that’s the reason why this year we decided to make this investment.”
At group level, the holdings company has acquired a company in the US and already operates a centre in Dubai, with ambitions to deepen its presence across the Gulf and beyond.
Underpinning all this is a simple warning to employers who think they can sit out the AI wave.
“If you don’t digitalize, you don’t enable your people, then you’re going to lose out to a competitor who is leveraging. That’s the difference.”
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