Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) has introduced the IdeaKita initiative to create and foster 200 new tech companies by the end of the year.
IdeaKita will provide its participants with support in three key areas, namely, industry mentorship, Intellectual Property (IP) awareness and minimum viable product (MVP) development. In addition to this, IdeaKita will also provide a series of workshops and training sessions to aid founders throughout their ideation journey.
Chief Executive Officer of MDEC, Mahadhir Aziz, said that the programme is designed to facilitate the journey of budding entrepreneurs in establishing their own tech company. The programme is also part of MDEC’s new Malaysia Digital initiative which aims to catalyse and transform the capabilities and capacities of our digital ecosystem and to accelerate the growth of Malaysia’s digital economy.
“When entrepreneurs embark on their innovation journey, market experts typically only get involved towards the end of the innovation process, leading to a mismatch between industry demand and the tech solution. Through our existing programmes such as MDEC Innovation Exchange (MIX), Funding Facilitation and GAIN, we have established a strong network of industry experts who can guide entrepreneurs in the ideation and validation of tech solutions to ensure it is relevant to market demand,” he added.
IdeaKita kicked off with a nationwide roadshow on 29th July at Taylor’s University to attract and recruit as many entrepreneurs as possible while showcasing relevant workshops and assistance to aid their journey. Subsequently, MDEC will also host events in the following states:
- 5th August 2022: Digital Penang, Level 3, Bangunan Wisma Yeap Chor Ee, Pengkalan Weld, 10300 George Town, Pulau Pinang
- 14th August 2022: EduCity Hub, EduCity Iskandar, 79250 Iskandar Puteri, Johor Darul Ta’zim
- 19th August 2022: Kinabalu Hall Level 5, Sabah International Convention Centre (SICC), Tanjung Lipat, Jalan Tun Fuad Stephens, 88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah
- 3rd September 2022: TEGAS Digital Village, Sama Jaya High Tech Park Muara Tebas Land District, 93350 Kuching, Sarawak
This is followed by an intensive innovation bootcamp in October for participants to validate their ideas. MDEC will provide participants with tools, workshops and
mentoring session to assist them in developing industry-validated MVPs.
IdeaKita will conclude in November with a graduation ceremony and participants will be funnelled to other MDEC initiatives such as Malaysia Digital Hub (MDH), MDEC Innovation eXchange and Founders Grindstone, among others.
In line with the focused sectors under Malaysia Digital, this initiative is open for founders that are looking to develop tech solutions for the industries such as Digital Trade, Digital Agriculture, Digital Services, Digital Cities, Digital Health, Digital Finance, Digital Content, Digital Tourism and Islamic Digital Economy.
MDEC is working closely with state-owned agencies such as Digital Penang, EduCity Iskandar Johor, Sabah Creative Economy and Innovation Centre (SCENIC), Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation (SDEC) and Tabung Ekonomi Gagasan Anak Sarawak (TEGAS) for this initiative.
IdeaKita is aligned to increase the number of startups to 5,000 by 2025 as identified as one of the nine focus sectors under Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint.