ASEAN Virtual Business Plan Competition

The UNE Business School hosted the first ever ASEAN Virtual Business Plan competition on 3 July 2018 at the UNE Sydney campus. The competition was supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-ASEAN Council (AAC) of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It involved the University of New England in Australia, Rangsit University in Thailand, and the Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) in Malaysia.

Each university successfully organised a national competition and the two top teams from each country pitched their ideas to a panel of international judges at the international competition.

In Australia, 48 Expressions of Interest (EOIs) were received from 9 universities. Eighty teams, comprising 232 individuals from 6 countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Vietnam and Thailand) provided EOIs for the Thai competition. There were 136 EOIs from 32 universities in Malaysia.

Rangsit University organised two training sessions for participants: the first to introduce them to the ideation process and the second to teach participants to organise their ideas into a business plan and to pitch their ideas to an audience. The Thai national competition was held on 7 May 2018. UiTM held pre-pitching training for 144 registered participants and the national competition occurred on 10 May 2018.

In Australia, preparation for the competition occurred virtually with participants spread across the country, from Queensland, NSW and Victoria to Tasmania and Western Australia. We developed resources to support all stages of the competition. A webinar was held and participants were provided one-on-one mentoring on their business plans via telephone and email. The results of the national competition were announced on 18 June 2018.

The first prize went to Alexander Bourne of Griffith University for his eEnterprises business on real estate while the second prize was awarded to a team of four students from UNSW, Curtin and Monash universities. Their business plan for SEA.com was a financial consulting business in Indonesia focussed on retirement planning. The third prize was taken by UNE’s Joanne Reid for her business ‘Inkludem’ aimed at developing and selling language books to help foreign visitors interact with locals in non-English speaking countries.

Dignitaries from the Malaysian and Thai Embassies and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as well as the Vice Chancellor, Professor Annabelle Duncan and Professor Lillian Corbin attended the international competition in Sydney. The first prize went to GoGood from Malaysia for their CSR consulting business aimed at small and medium firms. Alexander Bourne’s eEnterprises came second and an encouragement award went to PockeTeach from Rangsit University for their business aimed at providing access to external tutoring for tertiary degree students.

All four competitions were very successful and commended by all attending dignitaries in each of the three countries. It is planned to hold the competition bi-annually with the next competition due in 2020.

The program booklet and videos on the international competition are available via the link below.

Download a copy of the program for the International Competition, 3 July 2018
(PDF, 294.36 KB)

Watch the International Competition

Morning session

Afternoon session

View photo gallery


Contact

For more information contact the following:

Australia

Associate Professor Bernice Kotey
UNE Business School
University of New England.
Email: aseancomp@une.edu.au
Tel: + 61 2 6773 2830

Thailand

Assistant Professor Dr Kathy Terdpaopong
Faculty of Accountancy, Rangsit University
52/347 Paholyotin Road
Pathumthani 11110, Thailand.
Email: aseancomp@rsu.ac.th
Tel: +66 2 997 2200 Ext 1067

Malaysia

Professor Dr Normah Haji Omar
Accounting Research Institute (ARI) Level 12, SAAS Building, 40450
Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia.  
Email: aseanvirtual@uitm.edu.my
Tel: 603-55444924


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