SERDANG, Selangor, 20 August 2017 – More than 10,000 enthusiastic runners, friends and families came to MAEPS to participate in the Merdeka MYBUDDIES Run 2017 event Sunday morning. The event is in conjunction with the 60th National Day Celebration and featured three routes of 21 KM, 10 KM and 5 KM (Fun Run). Since 2015, the run has grown to become one of most awaited running event in Malaysia, drawing thousands of local runners and in this 4th edition, more runners have participated. The event, encompasses beautiful area of Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS), Malaysian Agriculture Research & Development Institute (MARDI) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), saw the arrival of public figures, guests and participants from as early as 5am. And by the time the event was flagged off, over 8,000 people had gathered in their Merdeka MYBUDDIES Run t-shirts for the event organised by Ministry of Communications & Multimedia Malaysia (KKMM) and the national domain name provider MYNIC. The flagging off of the run was by Deputy Minister KKMM, YB Dato’ Jailani Johari, KKMM Secretary General, YBhg Dato’ Sri Dr. Sharifah Zarah Syed Ahmad, MYNIC Chairman, YBhg Datuk Bridget Lai and MYNIC Chief Executive Officer, YBhg Datuk Hasnul Fadhly Hasan. The VIPs later joined in the run along with many other parents who came with their young children. Dato’ Jailani, who took part and completed the 5km run, said, “This run unites us in one national event, and invites Malaysians to play an active role in promoting unity and the spirit of Negaraku Sehati Sejiwa.” “At the same time, it brings awareness to families and community from all walks of life for a healthier and environmental-friendly lifestyle. The run was good and one will be surprise of how beautiful the scenery is. This is Malaysia that we all love” said Dato’ Jailani. In line with this year National Day theme “Negaraku Sehati Sejiwa”, the crowd were presented with variety of exciting activities including War Cry, drumline, and choral speaking. There was top artist presence such as Khai Bahar, Wakaka Group and many more. "MYNIC always driving the adoption of IT in our life and MERDEKA MYBUDDIES RUN has demonstrated this effectively. We have introduced specific domain name as channel of enquiries, where you can easily ask any questions on the event. But the one loved by many runners is a special domain name ‘parking.mybuddies.my’, which will guide them to dedicated parking space. It is simple but very powerful,” explained Datuk Hasnul. Hasnul added “Merdeka has brought many meanings and the fact we are able to enjoy this wonderful event in a peaceful country is one of the greatest gift Malaysian can have. This is an amazing event with amazing crowd. We will definitely do this again.” TV and radio presenter, Radin rallied the spirited crowd to sing the Negaraku and at the end, runners also entitled to win series of lucky draw worth RM80,000 including a grand prize of Perodua Axia and other enthralling prizes such as MODENAS motorbike, mountain bike, sport watches and many more.