Portal for internships with Asian startups launched

• Malaysian startup community in collaborative social effort that is ‘rarely seen these days’
• Currently covers the ecosystems in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Philippines

A GROUP of Malaysian ecosystem players has rolled out Launchpad, an ‘internship aggregator’ that aims to provide students and fresh graduates with access to information on the best internships offered by the startup sector in Asia.
 
Working in a startup in the world’s fastest growing economic region would provide immense opportunities for students to get first-hand experience and discover their real strengths and weaknesses, said iMoney, the financial comparisons company that initiated the project.
 
Though recruitment has never been iMoney’s core business focus, Launchpad was created as a social project to help students – the same community that helped the company grow in its early days – match their skills to the right jobs, the company said in a statement.
 
“As a company built with the help of interns from around the world, we understand the difficulties students face in finding an internship position that will expose them to a myriad of opportunities and experiences,” said Lee Ching Wei (pic), group chief executive officer and cofounder of iMoney.

“We made it our ‘extra-curricular’ project to create Launchpad, with the help of other startups, universities and partners to spread the word to reach more students,” he added.

With Launchpad, the Malaysian startup community is jumping on board to be a part of the community project – making it a collaborative social effort that is rarely seen these days, iMoney claimed.

The project currently covers the ecosystems in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Philippines.

iMoney’s partners in the project include: EasyUni, an education portal that allows parents and students to search for and find the right courses in the right university; business weekly newspaper Focus Malaysia; Endeavor, a global non-profit focused on entrepreneurship in emerging economies; MAD Incubator; and MoneyTree, which provides financial literacy for school-going children.

Other partners are: Piktochart, a startup which specialises in infographics and data visualisation; Proficeo, which provides mentorship and coaching to entrepreneurs; Startup@Mamak, a community of tech entrepreneurs and ecosystem stakeholders; StartupMalaysia.org, an accelerator-cum-community for startups; Soft Space, a mobile payments pioneer; and Cradle Fund, the Ministry of Finance agency that manages the Cradle Investment Programme.

“Cradle is pleased to support this noble effort by iMoney and we hope it will be a great tool to those seeking internship placements,” said Hazel Hassan, Cradle vice-president of marketing and strategic partnerships.

“We see this as a stepping stone for them to acquire knowledge, gain work experience and hopefully gather the startup spirit too. We believe that by gaining work experience in a startup environment, interns will take with them the right attitude and skills that will help chart a brighter future,” she added.

“We recognise the value of Launchpad, and EasyUni … decided to jump in to spread the word to universities and higher institutions to direct students to the right career,” said Edwin Tay, its chief executive officer.

To check it out, go to http://www.imoney.my/launchpad.