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IN THE COLD of Oslo’s winter, 28 young social entrepreneurs from 14 countries huddled together to share their ideas on how mobile technology can be used to better the world.

They were participants of a three-day Telenor Youth Summit in Norway from Dec 9 to 11 that aimed to help millennials learn, collaborate and refine their ideas for social enterprises.

This year, Malaysia was represented by journalist Christine Cheah and student Yong Wei Shian.

Cheah and Yong were selected from a pool of 11 finalists based on their mobile app idea and the strengths of their pitches. The final 11 had been chosen from a total of 200 submissions to Telenor’s Malaysian business unit DiGi.

“Our two winners were chosen based on their keen interest and commitment to the betterment of their community. Both Christine and Wei Shian have, on their own initiative, made some progress in bringing their ideas to life,” says Joachim Rajaram, DiGi’s head of communications and corporate responsibility, who was part of the judging panel.

Christine-Cheah_edGY_1045Two years ago, Christine Cheah’s family was struck by the devastating news that her mother had cancer. What ensued was an emotional roller coaster.

“Most cancer patients feel anxious and fearful of the uncertainties of their illness. Often, they do not have an outlet for sharing their feelings and receiving guidance from others facing these diseases,” says Cheah.

She felt that there should be a better support system for cancer patients and their families. Thus, she came up with an idea for patient support groups to be hosted on a mobile app platform.

This mobile app would connect cancer patients and survivors around Malaysia to allow them to share information and give advice or a kind word of support. What’s more, Cheah’s idea also allows for medical professionals and certified caretakers from related non-governmental organisations to provide advice.

Cheah, 25, believes that Malaysia needs a mobile app like this because many of the websites and online support groups are normally targeted at an international audience.

#edGY: Why is there a need for a mobile app for cancer patients? Does it have to be an app?
Christine Cheah: Support groups across Malaysia are not really connected, especially in smaller towns where it’s a very small group operating in its own sphere. It’s true that my mother could probably join a support group’s WhatsApp chat group, but it would be limited to her own small social circle.

What I want is for her to have access to more people with the same symptoms. It would be even better if there was someone, a physician or a professional, on the app to tell her what to do or what not to do.

Another problem I see in Malaysia is that people sometimes seek out witch doctors. This is more prevalent in smaller towns.

So if there is an app, it would be just like an online forum moderated by groups such as the National Cancer Society of Malaysia (NCSM) and Hospis Malaysia where they actually have people monitoring what others are posting there, who is posting what, and whether the answer is valid.

How is your app idea different from an online forum?
The app serves as an online forum but my idea is to have three main pillars for this app. The first pillar would be a place for people to ask questions and get answers. The second would be a place for them to learn, where cancer survivors can share their stories in the form of a video, print or photo essay.

There would also be a directory of Malaysian hospitals with oncologists because I’ve found that it is not easy to find them. It’s a problem, especially in smaller towns, to find government hospitals. Often, oncologists only go there once in two months and that’s like the only hospital in the entire state.

How do you plan to roll out the app?
I have already spoken to Hospis Malaysia and NCSM.

Next year, NCSM plans to have a hotline where anyone can dial in and nurses will pick up the phone. They will key in some of the patients’ medical history, whatever the patients want to reveal and answer their questions.

This app could go together with what NCSM is providing. Hospis Malaysia also has its own set of physicians and nurses who can contribute to this app.

At the moment, I am applying for funding as well as looking for developers to create the app.

What are your plans to monetise the app to keep it sustainable?
For monetisation, it’d probably be the directory function. Maybe hospitals would be able to list their details but then, it really depends because medical practitioners have to adhere to a set of rules when it comes to advertising.

For now, I think it would be good enough if the app can serve its main aim of providing an online platform for people to ask questions.

Cancer can happen to people of all ages. Would the elderly patients be able to use the app?
Older people may not be very tech savvy, but the next generation of patients will be and those are the ones we’re targeting. We have to be ahead of them, so when they need it, this app will be there for them. But if this app appeals to elderly patients today, they might actually use it because I have seen older people using smartphones.

Yong-Wei-Shien_edGY_1045Yong Wei Shian is a student who spends his free time volunteering at a non-governmental organisation that serves food to the poor and needy.

There, he saw the challenges faced by civil society groups that work with people in need of meals. It is not easy to raise money to buy all the food they need. On the other hand, there is large amount of food wastage happening around us in the food supply chain and food and beverage industry.

“Malaysia wastes up to 15,000 tonnes of food daily and this gave me an idea on how we can use this abundant food surplus to feed the underprivileged. I envisioned a mobile app that can facilitate food transfers by connecting the respective contributors to soup kitchens and NGOs that provide food to the needy,” says Yong, a 21-year-old pharmacy student at Penang’s Universiti Sains Malaysia.

To work on this idea, Yong roped in three friends who are in the food technology field. Concerns about food safety and handling prompted Yong’s team to decide to work with surplus food that is uncooked.

So, likely partners for Yong’s project include food wholesalers, hotels and restaurant chains that have extra raw or uncooked food and so forth.

#edGY: Why is there a need for a mobile app to manage food wastage? Does it have to be an app?
Yong Wei Shian: Our big dream is to set up a food-based network in Malaysia. Maybe it can be done on a website but for us to scale up, an app is needed because it is more accessible.

When you post on the app about wanting to donate surplus food, the NGO would get a notification and it can take immediate action to have the resources picked up.

How do you plan to roll out the app?
I am applying for funding. My team and I are engaging a few NGOs and local businesses. We will be the agent doing the delivery but currently, we’re looking for an app developer because this app will soon become a business, where we will charge the local businesses a yearly fee.

Are you planning to monetise the app?
Yes. I am actually going to Ireland because I am going to meet the founder of Food Club. Food Club is an app that has a similar idea to the one I have. They currently have a national partner, which is Tesco.

What happens is, Tesco will give them a yearly subscription fee and they will help Tesco distribute all the surplus food to the nearby NGOs as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) project and also to increase the corporate image of Tesco.

So, to make it self-sustainable, my plan is to do something like what Food Club is doing, whereby we will charge the local businesses that want to partner us a minimal yearly fee.

How are you going to get people to start using the app, once it’s developed? What are your marketing strategies?
My plan is to get a national partner first, but first and foremost we will just have a few local wholesalers who want to help the NGOs. Penang has the most NGOs in the whole of Malaysia, so we will start off with Penang first and then we will slowly move to the other states. Once we get a national partner, it will be easier for us to find the nearby NGOs.

What challenges do you see?
My idea is quite new in Malaysia, so people are sceptical and we were rejected by some hotels after we had discussions with them as they had concerns about food safety.

So, I think the main challenges would be food safety. Therefore, currently my team is drafting a food safety guideline based on food technology consultation for our organisation to ensure people feel safe about donations.

What features and improvements will your app have in future?
It will have a Social Impact Tracker where all the food donors can key in the code they receive and track where the food goes and how the food has impacted people — for example, a certain amount of food may have gone to a particular NGO’s soup kitchen and it has used it to serve 300 free meals.

It’s like a brief report for the company to know where the food went and how many people it has helped. This kind of reporting will help companies that join us for CSR purposes.

This article first appeared in #edGY, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on December 15 - 21, 2014.

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