Jakarta, 27 June 2022 – Last weekend, the super financial app KoinWorks concluded the grand launch of their newest innovation KoinWorks NEO with a festival held at Plaza Timur, Gelora Bung Karno. The highlight of the event was the announcement of winners for the KoinWorks NEO Inspire Competition which focused on helping the rising categories of entrepreneurs including the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME), Womenpreneur, Freelancer, Content Creator, Startup, and Educator. A special category called Favorite Winner was determined by the most votes on the social media platform, Instagram. The competition showcased KoinWorks’ commitment to helping grow the Indonesian economy by inspiring entrepreneurs to build their businesses with the help of integrated financial services offered by KoinWorks NEO.
KoinWorks’ Chief Marketing Officer Grace Hong shared, “The KoinWorks NEO Inspire festival is a real step forward for KoinWorks to connect with our growing user base and have them discover the opportunities and benefits that our innovations are meant for. The competition established how SMEs can strategically develop their businesses, maximize their potential, and expand their network of contacts with the services provided by KoinWorks NEO. We will continue to develop programs and innovations for SMEs, womenpreneurs, freelancers, content creators, startups, and educators to prepare them to participate in Indonesia’s economic growth.”
This competition was well received by the general public, with the number of registered contestants reaching nearly 9,000 SMEs and business owners from across Indonesia. The 60 selected finalists participated in a series of activities that included a bootcamp as well as mentoring sessions with experts, before preparing and finally presenting their businesses at the KoinWorks NEO Inspire Festival, where they competed for cash prizes of up to Rp 2 billion.
“SME development is one of the most important keys to Indonesia’s economy, and the KoinWorks NEO Inspire competition and festival was designed to highlight the country’s diverse SMEs and give them the attention they deserve. We found the ideas and products of the finalists to be very creative and clearly demonstrate the quality of SMEs in Indonesia,” said Leonard Theosabrata, KoinWorks NEO Inspire Judge and Director of Smesco Indonesia.
The KoinWorks bootcamp provided further insight into business development for the participants. They were given a rare opportunity to learn not only the technical aspects of running a business, but also received valuable advice from mentors who are experts in their fields.
The series of activities proved to be a master class for running a successful business and culminated in presentations that were evaluated on the uniqueness and innovativeness of the business, the qualifications – from skills to knowledge of industry and experience of the business owner, the ability of the participants to manage funds, and the positive impact generated by the business.
“This competition comes at the right time. Currently, I am starting a startup and am ready to expand my business. In this KoinWorks NEO Inspire competition, I learned that one of the things we have to do is invest our time to adopt the latest technology. and includes KoinWorks NEO in the way we work. I hope my story can inspire other business actors to take proactive steps to optimize their business now,” added M Ridha Indradewa (Rewash Laundry), winner of the KoinWorks NEO competition for the startup category.
Meyrick Sumantri, Co-founder and Co-CEO of City Vision, a partner of the KoinWorks NEO Inspire said, “We are very happy to be supporting the KoinWorks NEO Inspire competition. Today we saw how robust the ecosystem for spirited small business owners are and we commend Koinworks for giving them the platform to push further ahead. As a proud Indonesian business, we would like to help boost the growing community through our own product, out-of-home (OOH) advertising, which is a viable way to market products and attract potential customers.”
