Liew (right), Hii (left) and Sharifah Sakinah (second right) present the prizes to the winning team.
KOTA SAMARAHAN: Some 40 potential entrepreneurs comprising undergraduates at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) here participated in the Startup Weekend Kota Samarahan event held at the university from Friday till last Sunday.
Themed #SWKSUNIMAS, the event saw the participants working in teams, brainstorming and developing their ideas, testing business models and carrying out market validations and tweaking it even further to spark their entrepreneurial skillsets.
It was the first on-campus Startup Weekend UNI Edition in Sarawak organised by the alumni of Startup Weekend Kuching and students of Unimas in collaboration with iCube Innovation and the university’s Centre for Entrepreneurship Development.
The event was also joined by four digital nomads from United States and the Netherlands, who are part of the LiveWorkFit programme currently based in iCube Innovation.
They spent time mentoring the students, providing valuable insights in opening up the students’ minds to rapidly evolving global startup trends. One of them, Laura Latimer (CEO of Nomadicare) applauded the students for their bold ideas and willingness to venture beyond their comfort zones.
On Sunday, the teams presented their final prototype in front of a panel of expert judges, including Charles Liew (Founder and CEO of Shine Pharmacy), John Hii (Lecturer from Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak) and Sharifah Sakinah (Senior Programme Executive from Malaysian Global Innovation and Creative Centre or MaGIC).
The team Borneo Food Fighters wowed the judges with their business pitch and emerged as the winner with their social enterprise venture focusing on turning food waste, namely unsold vegetables, into fermented food products, which are then sold to generate funds to run activities by The Society for Kuching Urban Poor.
The runners-up were Eggcited, a food selling and delivery portal that aims to help student entrepreneurs while providing convenience to food lovers, and ServeMe, an online marketplace for various cleaning services.
The winning teams each received 1-month complimentary access to iCube Innovation to continue working on their projects at the co-working space. On top of that, they will also be provided continued mentorship from leaders of industry to give the teams the best chance of success,