Student's dream to play role as 'The Apprentice' comes true

KUANTAN: Polytechnic student Muhammad Hafeez Amran grew up watching television reality show The Apprentice and sometimes pictured himself as one of the contestants.
Little did he know that he would be not only be participating but leading a group of 20 students from Malacca Polytechnic in a similar program called Young SocialPreneur 2017, which will required them to gain profit for charity using entrepreneur skills.
Muhammad Hafeez, 20, could not stop himself from smiling when his group, Team Warrior was called out as the winner of the first Young SocialPreneur competition, after their project 'Kenduri Charity@Nasom Malacca' gained profit amounting to RM35,322.
"I was speechless . We saw other teams' projects and all of them were equally as good as us. But this is our 'rezeki' (income) after months of blood, sweat and tears went into this project," he told Bernama when met here, today.
Team Warrior defeated 10 other teams, comprising of polytechnics and community colleges to take home RM5,000 and a trophy presented by Higher Education Deputy Minister Datuk Mary Yap Kain Ching.
Explaining their project, Muhammad Hafeez said they received RM1,000 as a capital and given three months, starting from July to double the money as much as possible to be given to the charity home of their choice.
He added, all of them agreed to choose Melaka National Autism Society of Malaysia (Nasom) since one of their lecturers, Siti Salbiah Ahmad Sharif who is also their mentor in this project has a daughter with autism.
"Kenduri (feast) is one of the best way to gather crowd. Thus we came out with idea to sell kenduri entry tickets at the price of RM22. To minimise expenses, we tried to get sponsorship as much as we could.
We saved lots on the venue because it was held at Malacca Nasom's centre.
"We used all sort of social media as an advertisement medium. We did not limit ourselves only in Melaka, but went nationwide giving the option that those who could not come to the event could donate their tickets to orphanage homes," he said, adding that he was moved by the cooperation of his teammates.
Muhammad Hafeez admitted that as the group leader, the most intimidating moment for him was to present their paperwork to judges, particularly in front of Datuk Michael Tio, PKT Logistic Group Sdn Bhd group chief executive, whom he described as playing the role of 'Donald Trump' in The Apprentice.
"I thought probably he would utter the famous sentence 'you are fired' but he did not use it at all, including to the eliminated teams. He told us that he did not want to demoralise us (by using that sentence) because he was impressed with the efforts that we had put into this competition," he said.
Meanwhile, Kuantan Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Polytechnic's (Polisas) student Azmira Athirah Mohammed, 20, was named as the Best Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for her outstanding performance in leading Synergy Team to organise Teluk Chempedak Charity Run that successfully gathered 568 participants.
She added that her team had managed to collect RM12,500, more than the RM10,000 their had been eyeing for, to be contributed to National Cancer Council.
"It took me few seconds to realise that it was my name because a few teams had defeated my team's profit margin. Maybe the judges saw the leadership skills in me, because once in a while they joined our group discussion.
"As a leader, I encouragedthe team members to share ideas. We choose to be part of this serious competition. All members should be given same opportunity so none would felt frustrated if his or her idea was rejected," she said.
Meanwhile, Michael noted that the 11 teams that qualified to the final round in the competition that was co-organised by Polisas, PKT Logistic Group and Feruni Ceramiche Sdn Bhd had successfully collected a profit amounting to RM103, 879.70.
He described the achievement as 'excellent' due to fact that it was the first time the competition had been organised, leaving the students with no previous reference in planning strategy, while juggling their time between studies.
"The teams had been informed that amount of profit is not the main criteria in selecting the winner. Every aspect is taken into consideration such as cooperation, business ideas and how well they can sell it.
"We saw lots of good ideas during the interviewing round, but not presented well. Some of them could not answer our questions, thus they were considered as not successful. We told them straight away why they were disqualified, so they could come back stronger in future," he said.
Michael noted that 47 teams comprising of 885 students had taken part in the competition, but only 11 teams were selected to receive funding of RM1,000 to develop their entrepreneur project.
Meanwhile, Yap said she was keen to see the competition to continue next year, with a bigger number of participation, including from local universities and private colleges as it teaches students the value of giving back to society.
"We want to develop holistic students, not merely focus on education. The entrepreneur skills could be applied after graduation and provide employment opportunity to others. It is good to see our students are well trained to hold important roles in future," she said. — Bernama