As many of you who know me or have followed my previous posts, you will know that I often see concepts and internet startups from West like United States of America and United Kingdom and hope to " research, copy and paste" and innovate in Malaysia and Asia. As i often believe good artists copy, great artists steal. I am currently involved in a startup called Confinement Hub based in Penang, an online and on-demand confinement care booking portal to help users book for confinement ladies, center and meals in Malaysia for Chinese and Malays market in Malaysia.
I initially wanted to copy Care.com, Sitterly and UrbanSitters.com or DogVacay that provide caregivers services such as babysitters, confinement cares, elderly cares and pet sitting. But soon realized that I wanted to focus only on confinement care and baby sitters. I myself have a soft spot for babies, elderly people and a pet lovers and often go the Goddess of Mercy Temple at Jalan Masjid Keling and give away donations to the old people there. I often talked to the old aunties and uncles who begged for food and money at temples and they often tell me because they are old they cant get proper jobs with good salary. Seen the success of confinement care platform such as 28Days.my Pantangplus.com and Caredo.com in Kuala Lumpur. I aspire to bring this concept to Penang and create the next caregiver giant for South East Asia
28Days.my is invested by branding expert Steve Wee of Brand Yourself and Caredo.com and Pantangplus are previous cohorts of accelerator program by Magic at Cyberjaya.
This strikes me the idea to concept of creating an online confinement care portal called Confinement Hub based in Penang which not only able preserve traditional Chinese and Malays confinement practices but also provide good job opportunities for old aunties. After talking to old aunties at temple, I learnt that they know all the traditional Chinese confinement practices and they know how to cook traditional Chinese confinement meals, how to wash and clean during confinement care and take care the babies and mothers under confinement period of 28 Days.
As I was doing my research to address demographic of old people, caregivers, mothers and confinement care and caregiver industry in Malaysia and Asia, i came across this concept of job listing platform for old people and retirees in US with the likes of SeniorJobBank.org WorkForce50. I never knew such concept exists in Malaysia and in Penang till i recently attended a talk titled "Baby Boomers: Ways You Can Give Back To The Society And Make Difference in This World" came across this startup called Active 60 and House of Trainings at @Cat Penang.
However, one main issue that i face is old peoples are not available on the internet and do not know how to use Whatapps or Facebook. They are not in the online world like youths and can be contact easily . I am facing a hard time recruiting old aunties and train them to be confinement ladies and listed them on my platform Confinement Hub
After attending the launching of @Cat Food Bank in Penang, my day continued with another talk" Baby Boomers: Ways: Ways You Can Give Back To The Society And Make Difference in The World". This talk is organized by Active 60 and House of Trainings.
Active 60
The contribution of older person in the communities and societies are often overlooked and under appreciated. Active 60 support and strengthen the participation of older person in various aspects of economic development through job employment.
House of Trainings
House of Trainings is a learning & development company providing in-house,public & customized programs For school leavers, post- graduates, young adults & working adults.
Before the talk starts I managed to connect quickly with Active 60 and House of Trainings and discussed with them the idea of recruiting old aunties or ah Ees and train them into confinement ladies and baby sitters and list on Confinement Hub.
I managed to talked to the founder of Active 60, Jane Lee and told her that i would like to recruit old aunties and provide them jobs as confinement ladies and the founder of House of Trainings, Ricky and Sherme that I hope they can help me by providing training resources and train old aunties to become professional baby sitters and confinement ladies
The title of the talk was" Baby Boomers : Ways You Can Give Back To The Society And Make Difference in This World. This is a roundtable discussion full of Apeks, Ah Ees , makciks, uncle and aunties giving opinions of how " old people" give back to society".
The talk is moderated by the beautiful and kind hearted founder of Active 60, Jane Lee. Many have suggested issues arise among the demographic of old peoples in Penang and Malaysia such as attitude and mentality problems of old people accepting jobs with lower pays, refusal to learn new skills, stubbornness and refuse to accept orders, the bias prejudgment of young people that old peoples are not technology savvy coined as " ageism" which is explained as prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person's age. I personally felt that the round table discussion is dominated by a particular apek uncle who have a law degree but not a a lawyer who refused to be termed as retiree but not working. He have so many opinions and dominated throughout the whole discussion
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Beside that the roundtable discussion is contributed by Ricky and Sherme the founders of House of Trainings that stated that his company help to provide alternative education and non academic skills training in Malaysia such as computer training , soft skills and life skills to encourage perpetual learning after school in this rapid working environment. They addressed that their company is looking in providing old people with computer training by teaching them how to use Facebook and Youtubes and soft skills such as public speaking. They stated that the main issue arises was the lack of participations of old people in events and workshop organized by them. Many old people refuse to attend workshops and exhibits anti social qualities.
The round table is also participated by Jaya from Centre of Instructional Technology and Multimedia (PTPM) which stands for Pusat Teknologi Dan Pengajaran Multimedia at USM. Below i explained what Centre of Instructional Technology and Multimedia (PTPM) is
The Centre for Instructional Technology and Multimedia (CITM@PTPM) has four main functions namely :
To promote the use of instructional technology in teaching and learning in the University and country.
To provide the theoretical and practical experience for students at both undergraduate and graduate level on the research, design, development and use of educational media.
To provide the community with the expertise in the design and development of communications and multimedia programs.
To provide services to the university in terms of advising and giving appropriate information on the design & development of audio-visual and multimedia system and providing the technical specifications for the procurement of these equipment.