What is MaGIC? That’s the question you may be asking lately, if you are a member of the local entrepreneur and start up community.
The best way to sum it up seems to be this : MaGIC or the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre, is the new agency financed by the Ministry of Finance to the tune of RM60 million (maybe more), to crystalise the United States President GES (Global Entrepreneur Summit) drive with UP Global. http://blog.up.co/2013/10/10/global-collaborate-state-department-expand-1000-cities-2016/
In his GES address, Obama had said his government will help support 500,000 new entrepreneurs and start-ups around the world via mentoring, nurturing and a new research network.
This Obama-UP Global initiative was announced only last October , and events were so quickly put into motion, that by the time Barack Obama actually came to KL, 8 months later in May 2014, MaGIC was formed, Silicon Valley whiz kid Cheryl Yeoh was recruited to head it up, and 7,000 youth entrepreneurs have been identified via the 1Malaysia Entrepreneurs initiative known also as 1MET.
But at same time, won’t they also be encroaching upon other agencies’s roles? It has already taken over another agency’s turf ie. the still shiny K-Workers Development Centre (KDC) building in Cyberjaya is now allocated for MaGIC. It is also creating a lot of doubt in the entrepreneur community.
One comment from a fellow player is that there is no clarity or strategy that has been announced. The only definitive thing they have said so far, is they would work on a directory of the ecosystem players.
One other fellow entrepreneur was also wondering aloud , “Where did all these 7000 youth entrepreneurs come from? I’ve never even heard of them!”
Another from veteran and MAD Incubator founder, Andrew Wong is: “Before the launch of MaGIC, there were a lot of pitching activities and so on and so forth. I understand that there are ideas that have been selected from those pitching exercises. But, I’m not sure in terms of how much is going into funding them, or how the ideas are selected!
“Everyone whom I know, who are entrepreneurs, are asking me, ‘What is MaGIC doing?’”
One other thing that has everyone wondering aloud also is MaGIC’s scope: At first it was about finding 5000 entrepreneurs, but now the scope seems to have changed to mean technopreneurs and startups that they can take to Silicon Valley.
However, everyone agrees it is still early days for MaGIC, perhaps the lady boss needs time to find her footing.
Personally, I think we too quickly fell over ourselves trying to ‘crystalise Obama’s vision’ before crystalising MaGIC’s own goal and role in the bigger scheme of things, which is the community, because we were eager to associate ourselves with Silicon Valley!
IT BYTES BACK! says: What our entrepreneur community needs is a huge infusion of fresh young blood to take things up a notch or two. But not at the expense of neglecting to dialogue with the local wisdom and experience. We have veteran players in the start up scene in Malaysia – what are they? Chopped liver??
