Building the startup ecosystem

Hazwan highlighted that as the digital village unit of SMA, they are “the

custodian of the Sarawak digital village ecosystem”, within which they work with all their partners to help the startups grow.

“For entrepreneurship education, we’ve got Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre ( MaGIC) from the federal level, and from our state ministries: Ministry of Industrial and Entreprenur Development ( MIED) and Ministry of International Trade & eCommerce (MITeC) and we’ve got our finance in Tabung Ekonomi Gagasan Anak Bumiputera Sarawak (TEGAS), STEM Playground, Sarawak Centre of Performance Excellence (SCOPE) and iCube.

“Even private partners from the corporate side, the private sector, are also part of the ecosystem,” Hazwan said.

For R& D, looking at all the universities, once the research is able to be commercialised, that will be passed on to the digital village ecosystem, according to Hazwan.

“We will be working with them to (get) more investors that will be able to help the startups grow and also invest in them.”

SMA will run programs such as ‘Startup Weekend’ and ‘Hack Weekend’ whereby they will try to get the idea out and fine tune it so that it can become a business.

Hazwan noted that once the idea is out, and there is a prototype which can be commercialised, SMA can help these individuals or businesses go even further with R& D, by looking into the markets they can enter.

“We partner them with industries, that’s where the support comes in, for example from Sarawak Media Group ( SMG) or AZAM Sarawak, which will help to promote the startup and provide them a platform so that they can network with global players so that they can scale overseas.”

As for co-working spaces where startups can work, Hazwan revealed that there are four coworking spaces which are up and running: SMA-TEGAS Digital Innnovation Hub (iCOM Square ), SMA-TEGAS Digital Innovation Hub in Bintulu and Miri, while in Sarikei there is the Sarikei Innovation Centre.

“We actually have up and coming in Betong, the SMA- Centexs Digital Innnovation Hub in Betong, and a few more in the works, including a cultural hub in Kuching.”

Eight digital innovation hubs are expected to be completed by 2020.