| Ishan Ibrahim |
BID.CO emerged as winners of Startup Weekend Brunei, an entrepreneur workshop that took place from April 6-8 at the Laksamana College of Business (LCB).
BID.co, an all-girl group, is an acronym for “buy, invest, donate, community”.
Second place went to Academy Shack, while CeReally Company grabbed third place.
A total of eight teams – consisting of youths aged 16 to 26 from local higher education institutions – took part in the workshop, pitching their way to the top prizes with startup ideas encompassing a range of Brunei issues, such as the current economic climate, education, agriculture, healthcare and social enterprise.
Ashley Uy from Startup Weekend Cebu, Philippines, facilitated the closing ceremony with a recap of Startup Weekend Brunei and its aims and objectives.
“I hope the participants will learn to take matters into their own hands and not let circumstances stop them from going for what they want to pursue,” Ashley Uy said.
“I hope as well that the participants will be able to learn how to accept criticism in a constructive way and use it beneficially in their everyday lives.”
The event, with Afiq Mohammed as the lead organiser and Dan Mahmud as project manager, is the second Startup Weekend held in Brunei.
“With the success of the previous Startup Weekend Brunei held in July last year at Progresif HQ, we are keen to see more successful entrepreneurs coming out of Startup Weekend. With the support of our partners, we hope this event can be a platform for the local business ecosystem to grow,” said Afiq Mohammed.
Placing themselves in the shoes of entrepreneurs, the participants put in an honest showing, testing out their budding ideas and sharing them with the other participants and seasoned industry players.
Among the industry mentors invited for the event were the winners from the first Brunei Rice Bowl Startup Awards organised by The Creative Core BN in November 2017, including Yusuf Flynn from Headhunter Sports and Haji Mohd Loqman bin Haji Hamdan from Al-Huffaz Management. Other mentors included Farah Fauzi from Techstars (Malaysia), Rahman Yoonus from ThinkAxis, Rahimah binti Yussof from Google Developer Group Brunei, Zeffree Kan and Nadia binti Abdul Kadir from Microsoft Brunei, Zulfadly Ismail from Anak IT, Felicity Chan from DARe (Darussalam Enterprise), and Rasyidah Samah from Startup Brunei.
The invited speakers were Stuart Lee from Articulation, who provided pitching workshops, and Redza Shahid from Grub Cycle, who spoke about social enterprises.
The second Startup Weekend Brunei was made possible with the support of Progresif as strategic partner, DARe as ecosystem partner, LCB and Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam as platinum sponsors, Startup Brunei as supporting accelerator, and The Neu Company and InTurn as community partners. Prizes were sponsored by e27 and Sribuza. Startup Weekend Brunei is a 54-hour entrepreneur workshop and part of the largest community of passionate entrepreneurs in the world, with a global reach of over 2,000 events in more than 135 countries.
The camp’s goal is to create an environment where passionate people can gather and have an experiential education on all things startup, from networking, collaborating and exposing potential in the ideation stage, right up to seeing real results in action.
Powered by Google for Entrepreneurs and Techstars, Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of passionate entrepreneurs whose mission is to inspire, educate and empower communities to launch life-changing ideas.
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