The 5th Annual ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Awards Opens Nomination for 2019

PETALING JAYA,Malaysia,June 19,2019 -- The ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Awards (Rice Bowl) has returned for another year of celebrating excellent startup within the ASEAN region. It has opened its platform for nominations for the 5th year of the awards.

Rice Bowl Ambassadors that comprised of representatives from all over Southeast Asia receiving the recognition at the launch of the 2019 season of ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Award.

Rice Bowl is an awards program that seek to recognise innovation,excellence,and best practices in startups and ecosystem players across Southeast Asia. Since the first Rice Bowl Awards in 2015,over 3000 startups from all around the region have been recognised for being the best in their sector either nationally,or at a regional level.

"As Rice Bowl is now in its fifth year,we have grown to be recognized as one of the premier startup awards in this region," said Hamdi Mokhtar,Chairman of New Entrepreneurs Foundation,the Brand Owner and Organiser of Rice Bowl.

The launch event that was held at New Entrepreneurs Foundation's offices earlier today was graced by the attendance of the Deputy Minister of Entrepreneurship Development,Datuk Wira Dr. Mohd Hatta Bin Md Ramli. He mentioned that the government recognises the importance of digitalisation and entrepreneurship in the country and the region. "These two are an important driver of innovation,competitiveness and growth for the country," said Dr. Mohd Hatta.

The awards will be held in two rounds - the nationals and the regionals. Once the nomination period ends on the 9th of August 2019,there will be a national-level event in each of the participating ASEAN countries for an award ceremony. Then,each of the national winners will go head to head in a regional grand finale to determine who is the best of the best.

This year the regional grand finale of the awards will be held in Kuala Lumpur inJanuary 2020.

Each individual regional award places a focus on uncovering and rewarding the very best startups and entrepreneurs from the respective ecosystems. Winners of certain categories at the regional-level award will have the opportunity to participate in the Global Startup Awards in 2020.

Rice Bowl 2019 will be awarding startups in 13 categories this year. The categories are:

Industry Award Categories

Best e-Commerce & Supply Chain Startup

Best Fintech Startup

Best Food Tech / Agri Tech Startup

Best Life Helper Startup

Best IoT Startup

Best AI/Machine Learning Startup

Ecosystem Awards

Best Co-Working Space

Best Accelerator or Incubator Program

Investor of the Year

Star Awards

Startup of the Year

Founder of the Year

Best Newcomer

People's Choice

The ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Awards,organised by New Entrepreneurs Foundation,celebrates the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship in the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem. Rice Bowl puts the spotlight on model entrepreneurship and inspires a dynamic community of startup enthusiasts,serial entrepreneurs,policy makers and diverse mentors in tech innovation.

The winners from Rice Bowl 2018 received 1.091 mil USD in terms of admissions into accelerator program fees,cloud credit,upskill and training programs and many more from Rice Bowl sponsors.

The event was also attended by Rice Bowl ambassadors,representatives from countries all over Southeast Asia that are advocates of the Rice Bowl program. These ambassadors will be spreading the word about the program to their respective countries,and nominate potential startups to the program. These are the companies that join the event:

EICO,Brunei

NIPTICT,Cambodia

Impact HUB Yangon,Myanmar

MDeC,Malaysia

MaGIC,Malaysia

SITEC,Malaysia

NEF,Malaysia

Brand Geeks,Malaysia

Co.,Singapore

RISE,Thailand

Saigon Innovation Hub,Vietnam

Nominations are open to all companies established no more than 5 years in an ASEAN country. The nomination period is between 27 May 2019 till 9 August 2019. There will be a round of judging by our industry-expert panellists and the winners of each country will be announced in September 2019 and the regional winners will be announced during the Grand Finale ceremony in January 2020.

PR Newswire is the news release distribution partner of ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Awards.

To nominate your startup for the program,visit http://ricebowlawards.com/

Website: www.ricebowlawards.com

Facebook: fb.com/ricebowlawards

For Media Enquiries,contact:

Malaysia

Ms Azuin Abu Bakar

azuin@mynef.com

+6 010 405 3979

New Entrepreneurs Foundation

hello@ricebowlawards.com

+6 03 7859 9410

About the New Entrepreneurs Foundation

New Entrepreneurs Foundation (myNEF) is a not for profit organization that focuses on creating and developing sustainable entrepreneurs via strategic developmental programs. MyNEF designs and caters programmes with the entrepreneurs in mind,helping them achieve their business goal. myNEF organized the inaugural Rice Bowl Startup Awards in 2015 during 1ASEAN Entrepreneurship Summit. For more information,visit mynef.com

About the Global Startup Awards

The Global Startup Awards provides an annual spotlight focus to web/tech startups in 26 countries across the globe. With each individual regional award placing a heavy focus on unearthing and reward the very best from within their respective ecosystems. The awards stand to represent the entire startup community - from the startups themselves through to the people behind them,and the organizations that work alongside these visionaries to make the great things possible. For more information,visit globalstartupawards.com

Just as rice is a staple among Southeast Asians,so is technology for fuelling businesses of the future. The Rice Bowl Startup Awards is the first ASEAN awards that recognize breakout startups in the region and its ecosystem.

For further information and to submit nominations visit ricebowlawards.com

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20190619/2502205-1