Pepper Labs Steps Up Empowerment Of Social Enterprises With Expanded Capacity Building Initiative

Pepper Labs holds Social Enterprise Accreditation (SE.A) Plus status from the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC)’s national certification programme that recognises legitimate social enterprises. The certification reflects its social impact, just allocation of resources and operational and financial sustainability, besides permitting tax exemptions for donations. 

“The team at Pepper Labs has long believed in combining our individual knowledge and skills to better the lives of fellow members of the community, especially those who have been marginalised. We believe in using capacity building to enrich lives and create sustainable digital and economic empowerment for inclusive growth. By offering opportunities to upskill that in turn opens doors to a better future, we hope to kick off and sustain a virtuous cycle that will improve wellbeing for more and more people,” said Dinesh Pandian, Director of Pepper Labs.

“We are very proud of how the former Masala Wheels beneficiaries have uplifted themselves, thus we want to expand the ways in which we can make a positive impact. There are undoubtedly many like-minded people out there who want to create positive change, and we welcome them to contact us for possible partnerships and collaborations. We are guided by the belief that ‘Change starts today and it starts with all of us’, so we want to invite everyone to join our mission,” he added.

Multi-prong Capacity Building

Pepper Labs’ capacity building programmes focus on three key areas – Micro-Entrepreneurship & Digital Empowerment, Youth Development & Gig Economy and Social Entrepreneurship & Policy Consultation. 

For Micro-Entrepreneurship & Digital Empowerment, Pepper Labs runs a programme focusing on the digitalisation of existing or new micro-enterprises through entrepreneurial training and digital mentoring, including training on managing logistics, e-commerce and payment systems. With training done in cohorts, registration for the next upcoming session is currently open until 30 November 2021 while the next cohort of trainees is set to kick off in December. Each cohort will be trained and mentored for one to three months depending on their capacity.

For Youth Development & Gig Economy, Pepper Labs runs a changemaker programme to shape a new generation of social entrepreneurs and digital ambassadors, where the youths receive training on Gig economy career empowerment and on creating social enterprises. The upcoming cohort is currently open for registration until 30 November and is set to kick off in December. Each cohort will be trained and mentored for one to three months depending on their capacity.

Meanwhile, Pepper Labs is working on rolling out the Social Tech & IR4.0 Accelerator Programme, and welcomes potential sponsors and partners. For Socioeconomic Policy Consultation & Impact Assessment, Pepper Labs continues to offer policy input towards shaping the social entrepreneurship space in Malaysia through recommendations, guidelines and budgetary allocations, via its role as the Chair representing Malaysia in the Malaysian Chapter of Catalyst 2030 – a global movement of social entrepreneurs and social innovators. In the Social Tech & IR4.0 Accelerator Programme.  Pepper Labs aims at continuing to expand a tech-enabled Cloud Kitchen that provides F&B micro-entrepreneurs with the facilities and support necessary to expand their businesses and are looking to identify unemployed culinary graduates to register before 31 December 2021.