Startup Commons Malaysia Startup Ecosystem Tour

In recent years, the Government of Malaysia has been taking proactive steps to build a strong infrastructure for the Malaysian entrepreneurship scene. The development of a strong and sustainable startup ecosystem is considered to be a key economic driver for the nation to remain competitive in the global landscape.

MaGIC (Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre) was launched on the 27th of April 2014 by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister YAB Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak. Since the birth of MaGIC, there has been a significant number of entrepreneurs benefiting from the programs and initiatives offered by the Centre. 

Startup Commons was invited to host a workshop at MaGIC on building digitally connected and data-driven startup ecosystem. The workshop supported the mission to catalyze the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Malaysia by introducing key stakeholders of ecosystem development to the framework targeting various activities and measuring the impact of these activities, and also providing better understanding of the relations between different areas.

"The workshop participants found useful insights on the architecture of startup ecosystem around the world, that will be useful when building similar ecosystem for Malaysia. On the other note, participants learned on designing program and platform that is data and KPI driven, allowing us to achieve result with higher effectiveness." MaGIC

The workshop generated great interest from the participants. We at Startup Commons hope that tools provided and skills learnt at the event will contribute to strengthening the entrepreneurship community.

With a view to build a sustainable long-term partnership, Startup Commons top-level people met with several organisations in Malaysia to get a better understanding of local startup ecosystem, its challenges and opportunities. These are major stakeholders in building robust startup ecosystem:

• MyIPO – the official portal of Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia and act as governing body for intellectual property in Malaysia
• PlaTCOM Ventures Sdn Bhd – the national technology commercialisation platform of Malaysia
• Technology Park Malaysia Corporation Sdn Bhd (TPM) – the  Innovation Facilitator and Enabler
• MyHarapan – supporting youth projects and initiatives that contribute to nation-building efforts
• ADAX – developing the Data Analytics Ecosystem in Malaysia and ASEAN region
• Malaysia Venture Capital Management Berhad (MAVCAP) - helping nurture potential technology based companies into big thriving businesses
• Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd (Cradle) - leading provider of early stage funding to innovative and aspiring entrepreneurs

Conclusions

Malaysia is definitely placing great importance on the development of its digital economy as it will be a key pillar of its current and future economic growth and MDEC, has taken the mandate to look at the Digital Economy of Malaysia in a more holistic manner, involving also other agencies that are playing a relevant role.

Many of these agencies have the mandate to become more self sustainable, having already initiated a transition to reduce public funding dependency towards self sustaining agency operations. This direction requires “business-minded” people leading and operating these agencies and therefore, even more special focus on measurement-driven, efficiency and results as the only way to improve.

In the context of startup ecosystem, different agencies agree on the need to bring more networking, collaboration and connectivity amongst them and while offline activities already "get it", - digital is no different and it should reflect that: interactions, service processes, service development, ecosystem management, etc. Therefore, there’s initial common vision and good starting point to explore a digital approach aimed to bring more digital connectivity to all parties involved so that information can flow horizontally to reach other organisations, as well as measurability and scalability to make life easier to all actors for best navigation within the startup ecosystem.

Startup Commons team has been invited to build a piloting project proposal, with main objective to initiate data and KPI’s -driven approach by data collection and metrics implementation in order to become more efficient in end-to-end perspective (user, operative and decision making level). The piloting project itself will be a big opportunity for Malaysian agencies to understand this digital startup ecosystem infrastructure that will bring more synergies to boost productivity, competitiveness, and resilience.

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