James Kon
For its business idea of maintaining a large database of fresh and local food products, Food Ville was declared the champion of ‘BSM Disrupt’, the first hackathon organised by Brunei Shell Marketing Company Sdn Bhd (BSM).
Leading Food Ville to take first place and a cash prize of BND5,000 was Dr Vanessa Teo, supported by team members Nur Aini Atiqah binti Mohd Ardy Morni, Muhammad Qushayri Yusof and Nuur Maizatul Nazirah binti Mazlan.
Second place and a cash prize of BND3,000 went to Koloni, for a hybrid platform that utilises Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to turn fuel stations into community hubs.
Kaimana, meanwhile, took third place and BND1,000 for Brunei’s first dedicated low-waste store.
Prizes were presented to the winners by Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of Finance and Economy II Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Mohd Amin Liew bin Abdullah, in his capacity as a member of BSM Board of Directors, in a ceremony held yesterday at the Brunei Malay Teachers Association (PGGMB) building in the capital.
The winners will also get the opportunity to collaborate and partner with BSM, to further develop their business ideas.
Dr Vanessa Teo told the Bulletin, “We are very happy about taking the top spot in the first BSM Disrupt hackathon, and we are also honoured that BSM is considering collaborating with us to help realise our project.
“I see the competition as beneficial and a very good platform for SMEs to work closely with big corporations. The participating teams were given training and workshop sessions on pitching, as well as market validation.”
BSM Managing Director Muhammad Norshafiee bin Dato Paduka Haji Abdul Jalil said, “The objective of BSM Disrupt is to create a safe platform where we can collaborate with creative and innovative partners to come up with new ideas and solutions. Disrupting routine challenges norms to enhance customer value propositions and improve the community, supported by data and market intelligence.
“BSM Disrupt is more than just a competition. BSM is opening collaboration and partnership opportunities with new businesses in putting forward innovative and fresh approaches to solving conventional problems.
“Not only that, we see the bigger value of this hackathon, where such collaborations and partnerships will enable new businesses to ‘growth-hack’ their way to the market.”
For the hackathon, participants were first invited to ideate, research and validate a problem that covers issues on the following categories – social, economic, quality of life, sustainability and health – after which they submitted a 30-second video, pitching the problem and why it was a critical issue to solve, and then prototype their respective innovative solutions. The participants also attended a series of virtual workshops delivered by invited speakers and mentors, covering topics on design thinking, market validation and pitching.
BSM received 32 submissions, with eight groups selected to enter the final round of the hackathon, based on their potential to disrupt and offer new products and services to BSM’s customer ecosystem.
The eight teams delivered their pitches on November 22, in a private session with the judges. The two-week event was made possible with the support of DARe (Darussalam Enterprise), BSM’s business partners, mentors and invited speakers.