Kota Kinabalu: Sabahan, Irene Mositol, has brought honour to Malaysia by winning the Social Impact Category of the 2022 Shell LiveWIRE global Top Ten Innovators Award, an entrepreneurial competition that honours innovators who excel in their fields.
The competition’s finals was held in Mexico City and featured 195 entrepreneurs from 17 participating nation this year.
“It’s very encouraging to see driven businesspeople from our country receiving international recognition for starting up cutting-edge ventures that benefit not only their own communities but also their own growth and empowerment,” said Shell Malaysia and Senior Vice President, Upstream Malaysia Dato Ivan Tan, while extending his best wishes to all the winners, including Irene.
Irene is the founder of DumoWongi, which helps women generate their own income by teaching them sustainable farming and further supporting them in aggregating their products for larger sales. Irene’s win comprises cash money of USD20,000 and a year of global business mentoring and coaching to further upscale and develop her business. Irene during DumoWongi’s first training session.
“I was truly shocked as I did not expect to be the grand winner for the social impact category. Nevertheless, I am truly honoured and proud to receive this award as this is a testament of DumoWongi’s achievements,” said Irene who hails from Kota Kinabalu.
“I am happy that people believe in my vision of uplifting the livelihood of my community through my business. I thank my team for their dedication and hard work as this has enabled us in receiving this prestigious, global recognition,” she added.
DumoWongi means ‘pleasant-scented farm’. Established in 2019, DumoWongi is a Kota Kinabalu-based social enterprise that offers a variety of herbal products such as fresh herbs, herb salts, dry herbs, superfood powder, succulents, and edible flowers.
It provides only fresh, organic, and pesticide-free herbal products and all crops are harvested fresh from the farm.
Apart from that, the company also provides an avenue for Sabahan women to make extra income by empowering them in growing these herbs and purchasing the herbs from them. DumoWongi currently has over 30 women in its supply chain.
Aside from Irene, Sarawakian entrepreneur Heineken Anak Laluan, Founder and CEO of Syarikat TIMOGAH, an e-commerce platform which enables small-scale and rural farmers to market and distribute their produce, was awarded runner up for the Business Innovation category.
He won USD10,000 and a year of global business mentoring and coaching. Meanwhile, Azuar Zainuddin, CEO of Satu Creative from Malaysia was named the runner-up in the Implementing Partner category. Satu Creative is the delivery partner that works with Shell in running the Shell LiveWIRE programme in Malaysia.
Top Ten Innovators is a worldwide competition open to the alumni of the Shell LiveWIRE programme.
In Malaysia, this programme, which was introduced in 2015 is held annually in Sabah and Sarawak and for the first time this year, is brought to Peninsular Malaysia.
For more information on Shell LiveWIRE Malaysia, log on to https://livewire.shell.com.my/.
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