Malaysian Software Testing Board (MSTB Official)

13/04/2026

Two hours of sleep. A live JPJ integration challenge. Presentations due at dawn.

That was the reality for 14 university teams at the Test Design Competition 2025, held in July at Sunway University. Students were tasked with designing tests for a Lane Management System and integrating it with JPJ's new e-testing platform — overnight, from scratch.

The challenge was not in writing the tests, but in structuring the test architecture across multiple subsystems while keeping every element traceable. That's not a university assignment. That's the job.

TDC returned after a long hiatus, and it came back sharp. What these teams produced under pressure would hold up against work from seasoned professionals.

Congratulations to our medallists:

🥇 Test4Q — Universiti Malaya

🥈 Putra Tester — Universiti Putra Malaysia

🥉 Busters — Universiti Putra Malaysia

Watch the highlight reel here: https://youtu.be/srIHOtG3pU0?si=5-LGhoQ2eVGJckBa

This year, TDC will return with a new format, while maintaining the same commitment to real-world experience. Full schedule drops later this month. Watch this space.

28/03/2026

If the test phase dissolves, what happens to the people whose careers were built around it?

Across Southeast Asia, thousands of professionals carry titles like QA Engineer, Test Lead, and Test Manager. Many built their careers in organisations where value was measured in test cases executed, defects found, and test cycles completed.

That structure is dissolving — not because testing failed, but because it succeeded so thoroughly it could no longer be contained in a phase. The numbers tell the story. Elite teams now deploy multiple times per day with lead times in minutes. Continuous testing adoption surged from 16% to over 50% between 2020 and 2025. Shift-left testing has been adopted by 67% of DevOps teams. The global testing services market is projected to hit USD 55.2 billion by 2026 — but growth is concentrated in automation and AI-driven quality, not manual ex*****on.

And then there's the CrowdStrike incident. July 2024. 8.5 million systems crashed. Not a bug in the application — a quality failure in the space between systems. No amount of conventional phase-gate testing would have caught it. The test phase isn't dying. It's transforming into something larger. Quality as a property of the system, not a stage in the pipeline.

We wrote the long version — the history, the data, the uncomfortable implications, and what comes next — for the MSTB blog:

Contents hide 1 How We Got Here: The Historical Inheritance 2 The Cracks: Three Forces Breaking the Phase Model 2.1 Force 1: Speed Has Outrun the Gate 2.2 Force 2: The Test Object Has Outgrown Its Boundaries 2.3 Force 3: AI Is Collapsing the Build-Test Boundary 3 What Replaces the Phase: Quality as....

27/03/2026

Here's a finding that should unsettle every quality leader betting big on AI: Teams using AI ship faster — but not more reliably.

That's from the 2025 DORA State of DevOps Report. The speed gains are real. The quality gains? Ambiguous at best. It lines up with something James Bach and Michael Bolton articulated back in 2009 — the difference between testing and checking. Checking is mechanical verification: does this output match that spec? AI is extraordinary at that. It generates hundreds of check scripts in minutes, self-heals when the UI shifts, flags anomalies humans miss.

But testing — the sapient, judgment-heavy process of evaluating whether a system is actually fit for purpose — remains irreducibly human. The World Quality Report 2025–26 found that GenAI is now ranked as the top skill for quality engineers (63%), ahead of core quality engineering skills (60%).
Read that again. Knowing AI now outranks knowing quality. That's a signal and a warning.

If tooling fluency overtakes deep quality thinking, we risk optimising for speed at the expense of the very judgment that gives those tools purpose. The question isn't whether AI will replace testers. It's whether testers who only do checking will have a role when AI does it faster, cheaper, and at scale.

We explored this tension — and two other forces breaking the traditional test phase — in our latest article: https://mstb.org/is-testing-still-a-phase-the-quiet-shift-reshaping-software-quality/

Where do you stand? Is the test phase still serving your team, or has your organisation already moved past it?

17/03/2026

SQA Professionals - book your seats to SOFTECAsia 2026 today 🤝

Last week, we explored where AI is taking software testing over the next five years, exploring new roles, new risks, and new rules. But here's the thing we kept coming back to: AI is just one of the boundaries being broken. The real shift? It's bigger than any single technology.

It's about how SQA itself is being redefined: across tools, across teams, across borders, across the entire development lifecycle. That's why we're proud to announce the theme for SOFTECAsia 2026: 𝐒𝐐𝐀 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐁𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

SOFTECAsia 2026 will explore this through three lenses:

🔹 Technology — What new developments are reshaping SQA? Where are they heading?
🔹 Processes — What new QA activities have emerged? What old ones are being made obsolete?
🔹 People — Are today's professionals equipped for tomorrow's challenges? Where are the gaps — and how do we close them?

🗓️14–15 September 2026 📍 Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC)

Speaker lineup, keynote details, workshops, and registration will be announced in the coming weeks. Save the date, and start thinking about what boundary you want to break.

08/09/2025

D-1 to the much awaited software testing conference in Asia! To all delegates, please refer to the arrival details & registration timings provided in the confirmation email. Don't forget to log into and activate the conference app that you'll need to register your attendance, view program info, receive real-time announcements and more!
See you tomorrow at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre @ East Wing, Level 3.

www.softecasia.org

03/09/2025

03/09/2025

Powering the Future of Software Quality at SOFTECAsia 2025!

Join industry leaders at Southeast Asia’s premier Software Testing and Quality Assurance event, happening 9 - 10 September 2025 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC). Organized by the Malaysian Software Testing Board (MSTB), this conference brings together global experts to tackle AI-driven testing, quality assurance and digital resilience.

Don’t miss sessions on ethical AI testing, next-gen test frameworks and best practices that shape the future of software.

Malaysian Software Testing Board (MSTB Official)

29/08/2025

Thank you

26/08/2025

Get ready for SOFTECAsia 2025! As the flagship conference from the Malaysian Software Testing Board (MSTB), we're dedicated to bringing together the brightest minds to advance Software Quality Assurance practices across the region. This year, we're tackling the crucial theme: 𝐀𝐈-𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐒𝐐𝐀 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.

Taking place this 9-10 September 2025 at KUALA LUMPUR CONVENTION CENTRE, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! Explore the full details and secure your professional development opportunity today: www.softecasia.org.

Prepare to be inspired by these global thought leaders delivering keynotes & tutorials:
- Prof Jasbir Dhaliwal (University of Memphis, USA)
- Philip Lew (XBOSoft, USA)
- Vipul Kocher (testAIng.com, India)
- Simon Frankish (Experimentus, UK)
- Dr. Pavankumar Mulgund (Memphis University, USA)
- Zarina Zain (Cognizant, Malaysia)
- Herman Md Tahir, AppFuxion Consulting, Malaysia
- Pricilla Bilavendran (Billennium IT Services, Malaysia)

These experts are at the forefront of the industry and will be tackling key aspects of leveraging Artificial Intelligence to elevate SQA practices – a core part of MSTB's mission to foster innovation and excellence in software testing.

Want to know more about their insights and the exciting program we're building? Don't miss the chance to connect, learn, and be part of the quality revolution. REGISTER NOW at www.softecasia.org.

SOFTECAsia is also HRD CORP CLAIMABLE. Contact us for more details.

23/07/2025