KUALA LUMPUR: The Social Enterprise Education Lab (SEEd.Lab), an incubator programme by Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is allocating RM250,000 for each venture under its incubation programme.
SEEd.Lab head and programme manager Aidonna Jun Ayub saisd the amount includes a RM50,000 grant for each venture.
“The 12-18 months programme of four to six people in each team, including the participant allowance, it is about RM250,000 per team for allowance and grants not including office benefits, mentorship, networking, and all of that,” she said in a media interview today.
Aidonna stated that, based on Cohorts 1 and 2, the total funding and revenue collectively secured by all eight ventures amounts to about RM8 million.
She also said that before announcing the challenge area for each cohort, SEEd.Lab identifies key societal issues to address.
“We focus on specific areas for each cohort. For example, when we started Cohort 1, the issue we wanted to address was youth unemployment. For Cohort 2, we tackled two issues, autism and dyslexia, that chain was on education. This year, as you can see, we are working on STEM education.”
From Cohort 1, three social enterprises – Foodlab, Teman Malaysia, and SOLVNEX – successfully graduated from the programme. Cohort 2 produced five graduating ventures –Sapot, Niagable, Sejolly, OneWay, and Enoku. Currently, six ventures in Cohort 3 that began in November 2023 – Aqufish, Sagemaker, Learnado, Quinterra, Pro Ladang and Arts Proud – are on track to graduate in May next year.
SEEd.Lab is the first initiative of its kind in Malaysia that takes its participants called SEEd.lings through an end-to-end journey of a start-up’s growth. The programme is in support of Petronas’ initiatives to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals, to create positive social impact for the Malaysian communities.
For 12 to 18 months, the SEEd.lings will go through the ideation, incubation and commercialisation stages in building their social enterprise. Once established, the SEEd.Lab programme will continue to ensure the solution is sustainable and scalable, with support from Petronas and TCS.
At the end of the 12-18 months journey, SEEd.lings would graduate from the programme and become founders of a social enterprise. Their ‘business-for-good’ enterprise would have secured an anchor customer, after prototyping and business modelling to help target beneficiaries and gain credibility.
A forward-looking growth plan would be in place, to allow business advancement and full-scale commercialisation with clear impact drivers.
On top of this, SEEd.lings would have developed personally and professionally, all in all, enhancing their employability in the job market.
