Malaysian Indian Youth Accelerator (MIYA)

Malaysian Indian Youth Accelerator participants learned to develop their very own self-sustaining social enterprise through financial assistance and innovative mentorship, giving paramount importance to create sustainable business models and empowering the Malaysian Indian youth. The programme was jointly run with the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) Malaysia to provide Indian marginalized youth and ex-offenders with ways they can start their own enterprises and how they can turn ideas into sustainable business models through an innovative mentorship programme with local impact partners. Held in 6 days with 3 phases, 100+ participants consisting of Indian ex-offenders and graduates from KL, Ipoh, and Penang were introduced to Design Thinking and the Social Business Canvas.

The participants identified the challenges faced by their communities through design thinking as a methodology of deriving user-centric products and solutions. The programme's Social Business Canvas came in as a tool for creating a solid business model around the developed solution, it is a collaborative tool that helps communicate different business models with stakeholders and brainstorm new ones. The certification is from the United States and accredited globally. Accelerator teams received a business mentorship of 8 months. A grant programme was organized to empower the participants to kickstart their projects and provide mentorship through impact partners and social enterprises. Local social enterprises and NGOs were introduced to the teams to provide them with further support post-programme, serving as a platform for participants to collaborate and solve challenges together with local heroes that have been in the industry. Through the programme, 9 social enterprises were established while 1 received social enterprise accreditation. 127 B40 youths were trained with the goal to set up social enterprises in Malaysia to help get ex-offenders back on their feet, even moving on to hire more ex-offenders to join their businesses to further impact the community. The programme instituted social entrepreneurial mindsets to encourage self-sustaining careers and to alter the social stigma and narrative around ex-offenders.