If you are in the know, Malaysia is on the verge of an entrepreneurship breakout.
Earlier last year, the Malaysian government set up a new Malaysian Global Innovation and Creative Centre (MaGIC), dedicated to growing the country’s entrepreneurship scene. MaGIC also serves as an one-stop centre for entrepreneurs that will provide financing, training, and intellectual property registration, among others.
To prove its commitment to MaGIC, the Malaysian government has also set aside RM50 Million (US$15.7 Million) for MaGIC, and this was announced during the Budget 2014 speech by the country’s prime minister. MaGIC is currently under the National Entrepreneur Development Office, a new unit that will be established under the National Strategy Unit of the Finance Ministry, which will plan and coordinate all activities related to entrepreneurship.
Besides promoting the entrepreneurial spirit, programmes scheduled by MaGIC aim to equip participants with the right attitude in approaching business challenges, finding the right investors and encouraging them to come up with innovative marketable solutions for the regional and global markets.
One of the many initiatives geared around MaGIC includes a soon to be launched program called StartupJohor.
According to its website, StartupJohor is a community set-up to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs around Johor, powered by At20s. It organises meet up events for startups, investors, as well as entrepreneur ecosystem stakeholders to connect, collaborate, create and share their stories and lessons learned along the road of entrepreneurship.
Some of the activities that StartupJohor have lined up include a trip to visit Malaysia’s centre of innovation, MaGIC, as well as a Startup Weekend event.
Startup Weekend is a high energy 54 hour event during which groups of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more pitch ideas for new startup companies. Participants share and pitch their ideas with one another during the start of the event, and then form teams around those ideas. They then work together to develop a working prototype, demo, or presentation by Sunday evening.
For the longest time, eager and passionate entrepreneurs in Malaysia, and especially Singapore, have envied their neighbours in Singapore for having a more matured entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem. Malaysia based entrepreneurs also frequent events and conferences held in Singapore.
With the newly set-up MaGIC and StartupJohor, it seems like these Malaysian entrepreneurs have something to look forward to at home.
But will it work? Rome wasn’t built in one day, and while the government through MaGIC has committed to grow the local startup community in Malaysia, it is up to the local entrepreneurs to be actively involved in the various community events.
For Vulcan Post, we will definitely keep a keen lookout for new interesting websites, mobile apps and events from Malaysia.