Text
Sustainable Entrepreneurial Mindset Showcase 3.0, or simply SEMS 3.0, is an event organized by UTM Centre for Student Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship (UTM XCITE) and Institute for Life-Ready Graduates (UTM iLeague) to help cultivate entrepreneurship in students, while incorporating sustainable qualities. The sustainable qualities mentioned here refers to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals put forward by the United Nations (UN).
Me and my team are being introduced to this event by, Encik Hairudin Bin Abdul Majid, which is our lecturer for the course Introduction to Entrepreneurship. We are being told that this event is going to be participated only by the best teams from each section of this course, where only one best team chosen by the lecturer will be able to represent the section to enter the competition. Each team will need to present their business idea to a board of judges by giving a pitch. The winners will receive resources as prize that could help to realize the business idea.
In this course, we are being introduced to various entrepreneur tools such as Ishikawa Diagram, or the fish bone diagram, Busines Model Canvas and much more. These tools are not only effective for us to build our business idea as a whole, but also a good tool for benchmarking business idea. With previous experience from Start-Up Weekend, which I had gained somewhat a taste of entrepreneurship pitching, I feel rather trilled that we might have the chance to do it again.
So, in order to earn my ticket to the competition, I had tried my best to learn the fundamental theories of entrepreneurship, for example the blue ocean and red ocean strategy, and attempt to implement them while constructing my business idea. By attending this course, I am certain that I am building a much solid foundation of knowledge in entrepreneurship, which will be beneficial in all kinds of ways in entrepreneurial activity. Me and my team decided to propose the idea we are familiar of, gimmeFood.
Our idea is a community food delivery service that will answer not only to Sustainable Development Goals, but also to majority of university students. We figured out that most of the food delivery service is slow, expensive, and have very limited service hour. Our solution aims to solve just which employs the economy sharing methodology, which eventually build a community that can help serve the community. We hope that in this course, we might bring our idea to the next level, enhancing its’ profitability and also sustainability.
Our lecturer had found our idea appealing and interesting, and had help us in developing and refine the business idea. I feel very glad as my idea is being accepted by our lecturer, and throughout discussing, it feels like the business idea is coming to life.
All of these came to a pause as the COVID-19 pandemic strikes. The classes are coming to a halt, and most of us are leaving the campus. I personally feel very depressing as all school activity are come to a pause. The SEMS 3.0, which should be a face-to-face event, is forced to carry out virtually over the internet. Learning such news, I feel happy as the event is still going to happen instead of being cancelled, but a little disappointed as the experience will not be as impactful as planned originally.
Online classes have soon started to take off after the Movement Control Order took place. Our lectures are resuming as usual, only difference is that we are having classes virtually through the internet. As the course is approaching the end, our lecturer had finally made his decision: he entrusted us to enter the SEMS 3.0 competition. Overjoyed, I thanked lecturer for his trust in our team, and straight away gathered my team members (virtually), and started to make our preparation for the competition.
We arrived at the preliminary round of SEMS 3.0. We are required to prepare a short video, where we will talk about our business idea. The SEMS 3.0 panel will then cherry pick the best 20 teams from the total of approximately 100 team to advance from preliminary round to the final round.
Me and my team work as a team from content preparation, pitch deck, presentation to video editing. I am once again feeling special to have the chance to play the role as the presenter to resent our idea. The idea of pitching through a video is very fresh to me, as I will totally have no eye-contact to make, so it is very different to traditional face-to-face pitching. In fact, many people, including me will think that doing a video pitching might actually be easier compared to live pitching, but I find it to be quite opposite. Video pitching is challenging as we can always have infinite number of trials, hence for perfectionist individual, they might take forever to complete a 4-minute short video. I find this situation happening on me, always stuck within a sentence. With the idea that the video I produced will be saved permanently forever, I hope that I can present only the best I have.
After some day and some sleepless night, the video is finally ready to be submitted. It was such a relief that when the video is ready.
Approximately after one week, the result for preliminary round came in, we are on the list! I can’t hide my excitement, but to share with our lecturer and my teammates. It’s like our idea is getting approval and acceptance. The fact that we entered into the next round indicates that we are required to do virtual pitching over the internet via an online video call. I feel excited but a little nervous as I this will be my first virtual pitching. Learning that producing a short video is already that hard, I think video-conference style virtual pitch might be even challenging. Me and my team started to prepare, refine and finalize our pitch deck for the final round.
To avoid complications, SEMS 3.0 crews put in a lot of effort in coordination. The communications are all done through virtual means, in this case we exchanged information via WhatsApp. We are being informed the time and date of the event, and the sequence of pitching for each of the team. Only the presenting team and the judges will be present in the video call, where the upcoming team must wait and allowed to enter the call only the next group had left. All of these communications are done digitally. I am quite impressed to see such method of communication worked smoothly, where further proven the practicality of virtual conference and virtual hackathon.
I can still recall that the event is happening in the morning. For I to would like to make sure I have the best possible internet connection, I visited a café in the morning around 9. There are not too many customers during morning, so I can have good and fast internet connection. Although we are kilometres away, and although technically I am only going to talk to a webcam, I still feel nervous. My mind started to think of the possible accident that might happen: will my connection turns out to be lagging? Will my pitch deck display properly? Will I speak too fast, and the judge cannot hear me? While I am panicking and having such thoughts in my mind, I am informed that it’s now my turn to pitch.
Me and my team joined the video call, and greeted the organizing crew and the judges. I can feel the judges’ energy through their voice and also their smile, although it is a bit pixelated. I am being introduced to the judges by the host, and our group’s pitch officially took off.
I must be honest to admit that, pitching to a computer virtually with no eye contact as feedback is quite challenging. As I have to habit to make eye contact with the crowd to seek approval, and making observations to decide my tone, all of these had just become impossible for me while pitching virtually. I finished my pitch without any applause and nods, but only a moment of silence mixed with ambient noise from everyone’s environment. I could not help but to question myself, did the judge really understand what I am trying to present? This thought quickly vapourised as the question and answer session kicks in: the judges responded with acute and critical question. Their question is not only specific but also technical, like asking me how large is the market specifically, or how long does it take for the business to gain return on investment. I answered these questions accordingly with confidence, hoping that my response will help our solution more appealing to them. The last question marks the end of the session, we thanked everyone and gracefully left the conversation.
Soon after a few days, the results chipped in. We had won a third place, best video and best in category. This is definitely an achievement for me and my team. We happily reported back to our lecturer to share our joy with him. Without his guidance and faith in our team, we could never make this far. Our lecturer is ever motivating, he even reached out to suggest us to develop our business idea into a real company, which I actually hope for. Throughout this activity, SEMS3.0 , I had once again felt that entrepreneurship is my calling, and I should invest more effort in my personal growth to develop in this direction.