Budding entrepreneurs receive RM50,000 in seed money from Shell
MIRI: Sarawak Shell Berhad ( Shell Sarawak) awarded five young budding Sarawakian entrepreneurs with RM10,000 each in seed money to kick- start their aspirations and transform their ideas into fully-fledged business.
The five winners were selected from a shortlist of 30 Shell LiveWIRE participants whose ideas caught the attention of the organiser as potential entrepreneurs.
Miri Mayor Adam Yii Siew Sang presented the mock cheques to the respective winners at the Shell office in Lutong, witnessed by Shell Sarawak general manager ( business excellence) Chok Chee Tsong, who represented Shell Sarawak managing director Simon Durkin.
Khairool Adzelan Aman from Kuching aims to connect youths through his project CodeLab to the world of digital coding and to inspire them to purse an education and career in this industry.
Wee Hung Yee ( Worming Up – Free-Range Chicken) who runs an incorporated agriculture technology company, intends to commercialise free-range chickens for public consumption using organic mealworms as feed.
Zaid Iskandar of Sutra Designs in Miri operates a printing business which specialises in printing Tshirts and decals for cars. His business is currently being groomed to enter Shell’s supply chain as a licensed provider of Shell merchandise in Sarawak.
Sebastian Lim of Simply Delicious currently operates a cold press juice business in Miri and plans to develop it into a health food bar promoting healthier lifestyles. He is also eyeing Shell’s downstream value chain as a supplier to its retailers.
Leonard Langgong from Bintulu believes that his idea of Food Steel Fabrication would allow more entrepreneurs to pursue their own businesses by providing steel fabrication for food trucks or kiosks.
Shell LiveWIRE which was established in 1982 has since been introduced in 15 countries, benefitting over 10 million participants and supporting over 9,000 businesses.
A pilot project was first introduced in Sabah in 2015 and eventually the full programme was extended to Sarawak this year.
A total of 130 youths aged between 18 to 35 signed up to participate in Shell LiveWIRE but only the top 30 ideas were picked based on the programme’s criteria on entrepreneurship objectives.
The year-long programme for this shortlisted group included a series of workshops which empowered them to start, operate and manage their own businesses. Each participant also received live coaching and mentoring by Shell business development managers and certified Shell LiveWIRE facilitators.
At end of the programme, the 30 participants were given the opportunity to present proposals and business operating models to a panel of judges consisting of programme facilitators and managers.
The proposals were judged on multiple criteria which included value of the product or service, market and competitive positioning and the entrepreneurs’ ability to be coached.
Lim said he is grateful to the Shell LiveWIRE programme for helping to realise his entrepreneurship dreams and to Shell for its continuing interest in human capital development through innovative programmes that will equip the future generations of Sarawakians.
Khairool Adzelan said he was prepared for plenty of hard work in starting his business and his coaches and mentors have given him the confidence boost to create something for himself and pave the way of contributing to the state’s economy.