JOINT PRESS RELEASE
KUALA LUMPUR – Earlier this year, Accelerate Global honoured 23 market-ready entrepreneurs from their Accelerate Entrepreneurship Program in partnership with PwC Malaysia. All 23 Accelerate Graduates went through a personalised 2-month Accelerate Entrepreneurship Program with an added one-month business incubation period designed to help the graduates become independent and generate income amidst the ongoing pandemic. Accelerate Global, a social enterprise founded in 2019, has to date, developed over 100 successful entrepreneurs through their signature upskilling program and have elevated the lives of over 5,000 youths through all of their workshops.
Ms Raudhah Nazran, the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Accelerate Global when expressing her view on the rising number of unemployed youths in the country, says, “There is a deeper root cause as to why the issue of youth unemployment is rising. True, the pandemic has awfully hit the economy and businesses are winding down. But if you really think about it, employment isn’t the only way out. We must develop youths who are independent, breaking them from the culture of dependency. Youths must take charge, be creative and must be able to start something out of nothing. The ratio of job seekers and job opportunities is unbalanced. We need to develop more job creators amongst youths and that is exactly what Accelerate Global is working towards.”
The success of this PwC Malaysia funded Program is evident as one of the graduates, Siti Afifah was recently handpicked by a renowned MNC to supply her Biskut Jejari Nestum in bulk and she too made her first debut speaking in a public panel hosted by Accelerate Global last 26th of March. When asked about how she felt, Siti Afifah expressed her gratitude for this program as she has learnt how to monetise her passion thus making her realise the importance of entrepreneurship in helping her achieve her goal of becoming financially sustainable. She too has learnt how to manage her emotions when handling big orders and how best to handle large shipments. “It was an opportunity I never thought I’d have before”, she says.
Siti Afifah and her Biskut Jejari Nestum!
Siti Afifah is not the only successful entrepreneur Accelerate Global and PwC Malaysia have developed. Erin Natasha, who graduated from this Program with a Nasi Kerabu venture has gained massive traction in her local community so far as she had to employ a worker to help her meet the day-to-day demand!
Marina Che Mokhtar, PwC Malaysia Deals Partner and Sponsor for Accelerate Global’s Accelerate Entrepreneurship Program says, “In line with PwC Malaysia's corporate responsibility initiative and focus on solving key societal issues in the community, we helped raise funds for this programme to help graduates most in need of upskilling and youths who were affected by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also had the opportunity to mentor a few of the participants and we found them to be self motivated, curious and creative, and resilient. It was a learning process for both the participants and us as well in the journey to groom new entrepreneurs for the nation. We're pleased to see some early successes and we would like to wish these promising young entrepreneurs the very best in their endeavours.”
The Accelerate Entrepreneurship Program is not the only plan of action Accelerate Global has to combat youth unemployment. This youth-led social enterprise has also recently closed an investment funding of over RM 470K via ECF Platform Ethis Malaysia, putting them on a trajectory to scale their impact through digitalisation and they are set to launch their platform in June 2022.
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