Sabahans urged to venture into agriculture and food security

KOTA KINABALU: More Sabahans are urged to venture into startups especially in the fields of agriculture and food security.

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba said these were among the fields that have immense potential in the market and globally.

He said Sabah should be able to produce more start-up companies and ventures if it was able to overcome some of the identified challenges which include the lack of capacity building programmes that support the start-up community.

"These start-ups have great potential but lack exposure and continued guidance from key players, not only from Federal agencies but also entities from each state," he said.

Dr Adham said this when speaking at the launching of the two-day MYStartup East Malaysia Region Roadshow at the Sabah International Convention Center here on Wednesday (Aug 24).

He said each Federal and state entity was welcomed to have continued communication with each other to achieve the goal of producing more start ups from Sabah and Sarawak, in general.

He said as of now, Sabah only has 24 companies listed in the overall Start-up Ecosystem roadmap (Super).

"That is why we are having this roadshow here in Sabah together with the Sabah Creative Economy and Innovation Center (Scenic) and other partners to encourage more Sabahan start-ups," Dr Adham said.

For the startup ecosystem global index for 2021, Malaysia was listed at the ninth place (emerging ecosystems) while it was at the 21st place out of the 100 over nations for the global startup companies 2021.

"We are among the most innovative in South-East Asia and just second after Singapore," he said.

This two-day programme would see participants and visitors learn more about the start-up industry, Super, the MYStartup portal demo, panel sessions about start-up ecosystems in Malaysia and funding opportunities for start-ups.

More information on this and other matters can be found at www.mystartup.gov.my.