Click banner to find out more

Click image to enter website and start shopping

A sneak preview of what’s to come for the Spark

Congratulations to the BEDB LEAP recipients of April 2012. LEAP stands for Local Enterprise Applications and Products and this is one of the babies of Brunei Economic Development Board where it helps to promote innovation in the country.

The guest of hounour was Dato Paduka Hj Ali Apong who is also the chairman of Brunei Economic Development Board congratulated the new recipients of the BEDB LEAP Grant scheme 2012. He shared how innovation is a key to high economic growth and he gave a few examples using Apple and instagram that have raked in billions between them. He also quoted a famous inventor Thomas Edison – “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

For your info, LEAP is a grant where it helps to cover the costs of the development of the prototypes or proof-of-concepts. The funds also goes to hiring manpower, the purchase of hardware/software and equipments and if necessary to cover the cost of protecting “Intellectual Property”. All of this is capped at BND 150,000 per company. So if you are interested, do watch out for the next opening by this year where you can apply and who knows your idea can be materialised through means of the grant scheme.

So far, according to Vincent Cheong, CEO of BEDB, around 15 companies have been awarded the LEAP Grant and he revealed that there is an additional BND 3 million being approved for the next batch of LEAP grant which is definitely a good sign.

he seven companies – Bru Innovedu Services, M&G Sustainable Aquaculture, Originfilms Sdn Bhd, Roz Floraculture Enterprise, SilverWings Services, SocialBuzz Advertising and The Rumbian Nation – are the second batch of recipients of the LEAP Grant awards.

The new recipients of the BEDB LEAP Grant at the iCentre yesterday

Dato Paduka Hj Ali Apong presenting a certificate to Sophia Siu of SilverWings Services

Dato Paduka Hj Ali Apong and Vincent Cheong (left) with the BEDB LEAP Grant recipients

Former chairman of BEDB, Dato Timothy Ong, came to support the new recipients

Dato Paduka Hj Matsatejo Sokiaw, Managing Director of Brunei LNG, was shown the latest apps on iPad called Chat Worthy by Keeran Janin of MeSixty. The company is one of the first batches of the BEDB LEAP Grant recipients and I shall talk more about Chat Worthy next week

Nicky Wong of Infindo Technology showcasing his latest IOS apps known as Bloapps which is a simplified version of bloggers or any websites that runs on RSS. This is very handy especially for my site for those who just wants to read my updates and nothing else. I shall explore more into this as well.

This is one of the new recipients from BruInnovEdu Services who also won the recent ThinkBig Ignite Business Plan 2011/2012. Congratulations guys!!