BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

Saturday, August 7, 2010
A BUSINESS networking group met for the first time at the iCentre yesterday with aims of sharing ideas and bringing people of all different business backgrounds together.

Keeran Janin, managing director of Expansys Technologies, in partnership with the iCentre brought about the idea of forming a group called “WannaBiz” which is open to anyone from students to seasoned business-folk.

“The actual agenda for the meetings is to get views from different lines of businesses and those interested in business to meet and let everyone know what they’re up to. Some may come from civil engineering and others from IT or management and accounts.

“The main focus is to try and encourage collaboration between businesses,” he told The Brunei Times in a telephone interview after the group’s first meeting yesterday.

He said that during their first session, most people came to find out what the group was all about as a lot of people weren’t really sure what WannaBiz is.

“So we explained what we’re trying to do here. In Brunei people don’t really share their business ideas and don’t talk to each other enough, normally they try to keep ideas close to their chest,” he said. But, if you want to build a sustainable business beyond local markets, it would help if you collaborate and work together,” Janin said, adding that their next meeting will be in four weeks during the fasting month.

Janin hopes that the group will help people think bigger about their business and help others collaborate with each other to share ideas.

An example, he gave was that in a year’s time, someone you meet at the gathering will have an idea and to share and work together with you.

“It’s a very informal group, and I’m hoping that it will remain that way. We envision it to happen at least once a month and at every meeting, we’ll give information about the latest happenings in Brunei as we are aware of the grant schemes and Think Big competitions.

“We’ll provide members on what’s the latest business scene in Brunei,” he said.

During the first session yesterday, Hadi Shafie from iCentre gave ideas on how to provide a pitch to investors.

“Our next session will feature one of the winners at the Young Entrepreneur Awards talk about his experience in starting a business,” said Janin, adding that they will be finding people who are interested to speak so they can join.

The business networking group has a Facebook page under the same name where they organise and announce their meetings. The Brunei Times

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