KUALA LUMPUR, 23 JUNE 2020 - The World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) Foundation, via its WIEF Young Leaders Network (WYN), launched its first online event for the year 2020 with the organising of the WIEF Idealab 2020 Series. This first of three edition series, entitled ‘Supporting Startups in the COVID-19 Era’, was held today, virtually via Zoom platform at 3pm, Malaysian time. Close to 200 participants, ranging from entrepreneurs to industry experts, from over 30 countries, participated the event.

The topic of this pioneering event was crafted to reinforce the endurance of the heavily affected entrepreneurs and startups, amidst the global crisis, as well as to address the changing landscape, during and post COVID-19 pandemic.

The session was moderated by Singapore-based award-winning entrepreneur in the matchmaking and mobile app business, Anisa Hassan. Two other panellists were Gopi Ganesalingam, Vice President - Global Growth Acceleration, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and Ebrahim Patel, Managing Director SiyaXoxa Technologies, South Africa and Chairman of WIEF Young Leaders Network.

The one hour discussion session approached four major areas;

1. Opportunities for startups and young entrepreneurs during the Covid-19 era

2. How a startup can re-engineer itself and move on in a post-COVID world

3. New ways of doing business without reinventing the wheel

4. The required support for startups and small businesses, worldwide.

“For me Covid-19 is all about a pause in the way the world has been running, the way businesses have been conducted and what we deem as important and as entrepreneurs we should always see adversity and trying times as opportunities.” said Ebrahim Patel starting the session.

He continued to emphasise that because of Covid-19 and the global lockdown, the economy has worsen in the last three months versus the three years that it took in 2008. This has resulted in a projection of USD30 trillion deficit by 2023. It has forced governments to bring in monetary intervention to save and kickstart the economy with a USD13 trillion stimulus package across the globe.

The speakers also shared their view on how entrepreneurs should review their business plans, how to move forward and be flexible about changing the purpose of the business and organisation.

One of the examples shared were on how global fashion houses have started manufacturing facemasks and Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), and Formula One racing teams contributed in re-engineering the processes to start making ventilators. These were done to ensure that their businesses remain relevant and sustainable.

“In Malaysia, when the lockdown was announced, a lot of SMEs were caught off-guard, I’m sure the situation was the same, globally. They had no choice but to stop operation. But on the flip side, in a matter of days, they have seen opportunities.” said Gopi Ganesalingam. “During the lockdown, we saw innovative such as solutions for contact tracing, logistics, e-wallets, artificial facial recognition for Covid-19 patients and we even saw solutions for farmers to sell their vegetation virtually. This is how the world has changed. Precisely as the Harvard Business Review has put it, the change that was predicted to happen in 2025 has now happen in 2020, in a span of only two weeks.”

“We always emphasize that SMEs need to go digital. When you are digital, you are international and you will be conducting borderless business. The SMEs have to wake up and adapt to the new normal, fast and realize that the world has change.” Gopi added.

According to Ebrahim, in Africa, the globalisation in business has also created weaknesses within local economy as manufacturing is now dependent on importation, and not local manufacturing. This has resulted in manufacturing halt during the global lockdown as raw goods were not able to reach the manufacturers, due to restrictions in ports. “At this present moment, 60,000 ships, laden with goods are stuck on the high seas, because they can't enter ports.” Explained Ebrahim. “For me the opportunity would lie in local demand and local manufacturing at this moment in time, rather than considering the global given the circumstances that we face currently.”

MDeC has been working with the government in providing stimulus packages for the people, one of which is PENJANA. They have activated their Business Continuity Plan (BCP) in February, when news of Covid-19 was trickling down from China, they immediately rolled out 44 initiatives, among which is encouraging SMEs to venture into e-commerce. They are also actively providing online webinars with industry partners and subject matter experts, to guide the SMEs during this trying time.

“The (Malaysian) government view this crisis in three parts. The first few weeks were the first part, all about ‘resolving’ the issue at hand, which was the spread of Covid-19. The second few weeks were about being ‘resilient’. It is during this time the government launched a number of stimulus packages to encourage us all to be resilient. And finally the third part is ‘restart’.” Gopi explained. “We have 16 different stimulus packages, ranging from training to tax relief and e-commerce. All of these packages will start to roll out starting 1 July 2020.”

When asked about ways for startups and SMEs to manoeuvre the post pandemic economic slump, both Ebrahim and Gopi concluded, “The most important thing is to remain relevant; is to pivot and the trick is to be done quickly too. If you fail, quickly get back up and come back in. In short, businesses need to do the three R to stay alive; Review, Refocus and Rethink and lastly the government and the private sectors should aggressively work together to curb this crisis together.”

The First Edition of WIEF Idealab 2020 Series was launched with a twist of pop up solo performance by Kilema Clement, an international musician, a vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist from Madagascar.

“People say we do not grow when things are easy, we grow when we face challenges” said Anisa ending the one hour session. This session was supported by MDEC.

WIEF Young Leaders Network (WYN) is planning up to 3 Idealab 2020 Series in year 2020. The next session will be held on 15 July 2020, entitled Taking Your Business Online: Starting Strong, Growing Fast. The session will feature Mohammed Yaacob, Director of Client Services and Country Manager Malaysia, Virtusa Inc. It will also feature Zohab Zee Khan, Educator, Spoken Word Poet, Motivational Speaker and hip hop artist. Seats are complementary but limited.

To know more, please follow WIEF Foundation on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram & Twitter. Visit us at www.wief.org or contact Faizah Jaafar at +6019 399 7746 [email protected] or Shabana at +6012 375 4957 [email protected].