The Singapore National Co-operative Federation (SNCF), a member organization of ICA-AP, constantly tailors its programmes to alignin to youth trends. In 2017, SNCF incorporated augmented reality in its SCOOP Trail, an amazing race-style event, to enable youth to appreciate and understand more about cooperatives. With the growing trend and interest from youth to participate in Hackathons, SNCF introduced Creathon, which replaced the Digital Business Challenge and SCOOP Trail, in 2020.
Creathon, a cooperative business challenge for youth, aims to impart entrepreneurship and a cooperative mindset in youth while enabling them to collectively come up with innovative solutions to address social and economic challenges facing Singapore today, while following the cooperative principles. Creathon also offers participants access to talks, workshops, and mentorships with SNCF affiliated cooperatives where they gain entrepreneurial and business advice as well as knowledge of the cooperative movement. Through Creathon, SNCF hopes to foster a strong interest among youth and in particular, the social entrepreneurs towards cooperatives, and in the process, develop future leaders for the cooperative movement.
At Creathon, participants compete in teams of five, as the minimum membership requirement to form a cooperative is five. In addition to the existing School Category for secondary school students, and the Open Category for youth aged between 17 and 35, this year, SNCF introduced a new category, Institute of Higher Learning (IHL) to attract interested youth from Junior Colleges, Polytechnics, and Institute of Technical Education. The winner of the Open Category receives the top prize of S$4,000 and funding of S$10,000 if their application as a cooperative is successful.
Participants are asked to present their business ideas to a professional jury comprising of established cooperators, entrepreneurs, and social enterprise founders. They are required to understand the structure and mandate of a cooperative as they must use the cooperative model to create a sustainable enterprise that can deliver a positive impact on society.
In 2021, SNCF shifted Creathon to an online format due to COVID-19. It attracted more than 500 participants competing across three categories with a record participation of 104 teams, up from just 40 teams last year.
It is inspiring to see participants at both Creathon events so motivated to finding sound solutions to social issues that are close to their hearts. These include looking after the mental wellness of youth, eliminating food and paper wastage, providing affordable tuition resources to address education inequality, and creating job opportunities for the vulnerable groups like elderly, people with disabilities, ex-offenders, and single mothers.
STEP won the top prize in Creathon 2020 Open Category with its cooperative idea that brings together heartland businesses with tourism providers through a community-based business-to-business (B2B) online portal. Their solution aims to provide unique cultural experiences for tourists; and at the same time, increase visitor traffic for local businesses. As the tourism industry has been severely hit by COVID-19, and international travel is unlikely to resume to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon, they have deferred their plans. NCom (previously Enigma) from the Raffles Girls’ School was the winner of the School Category. The 15-year-old girls presented a cooperative model in which teachers and students can join as a member, to provide affordable tuition resources and student care services to students in need. This would help level the playing field.
At Creathon 2021, Urban Origins with its social mission is to fortify local food sources for the future of our food security emerged as the winner of the Open Category. Its business plan revolves around a cooperative platform dedicated to all local food sources in Singapore by being a marketplace that aggregates local urban farm produce, agri-food tech products, upcycled food, alternative protein and home-based food and beverage businesses, for consumers. The winning idea in the IHL Category came from ITE College Central, Life Changers who presented their plans to create a mobile app platform to support ex-offenders by connecting them with job opportunities and offering them free IT and resume writing workshops that are conducted by volunteers and counselling services. Fortino from Raffles Girls’ School emerged the winner in the School Category. The team presented the idea of a food delivery service that aims to alleviate the food waste problem by using soon-to-expire ingredients and turning them into affordable, nutritious meals.
Although Creathon is a relatively new venture, it provides an avenue for youth and young entrepreneurs to share their ideas and meet like-minded individuals. It also provides them with an opportunity to know more about cooperatives as viable businesses with strong social missions, and to adopt the cooperative business model for their new business ventures. Through Creathon, SNCF hopes to ensure that the cooperative identity will strengthen and contribute to the growth of young businesses and the entrepreneurship landscape in Singapore.
