The 2nd edition of the Cyberjaya Startup Summit 2019 held at The Launchpad, Cyberjaya attracted over 200 participants this year. The theme for this year’s summit, “Build Stuff That Matters” became the key point in the keynote speeches and panel sessions that followed. According to Inbaraj Suppiah, the Director of CSS, everyone in the ecosystem need to start working on things that really matter, so that our resources can create more impact.

CSS 2019 brought together investors, founders, aspiring entrepreneurs, students, techies, accelerators, incubators, co-working spaces, corporate representatives, government agencies, educators and many others within the ecosystem from all over the country and also abroad. The event was graced by Dzuleira Abu Bakar, the chief executive officer of MaGIC who delivered a keynote on building an entrepreneurial nation, and Nizam Mohamed Nadzri, the chief executive officer of Malaysia Debt Ventures Berhad who spoke about the funding ecosystem.

Dzuleira highlighted the role of MaGIC as an ecosystem connector, and spoke about Malaysia’s ranking in the Global Innovation Index 2018 at 35th place while Singapore came in at 5th. She is confident that Malaysia can catch up if we can build a more connected ecosystem. The session received great response from the audience.

The summit managed to pull more than 35 speakers and panelists who are the movers and shakers of the Malaysian startup ecosystem, who gladly shared their vast knowledge and experience in building the ecosystem and growing successful startups in Malaysia. There was also a startup showcase with more than 20 exhibitors consisting of sponsors, partners and startups and private pitching sessions for startups to connect directly with investors.

Similar to last year, there were many engaging panel sessions on various topics that are very relevant to Malaysian startups and entrepreneurs; from smart cities, big data analytics, fintech to digital marketing to name a few. The summit also hosted the soft launch of the STARTFUND initiative, which is a new platform to make the whole process of getting funded easier – from finding investors, to getting that first meeting.

The Cyberjaya Startup Summit 2019 was supported by Setia Haruman, MaGIC, Cyberview, Malaysia Debt Ventures and HERE Technologies as main partners, and more than 50 investment and community partners who are actively involved in the growth of our startup ecosystem.