Empowering Special Needs People to become GIG Entrepreneur

Empowering the Special Needs people with Digital Tech skills to be independent GIG Entrepreneurs to sustain without donations or handouts

The Special Needs people are rarely given fair chances i.e. be it in schools, community or work place due to their ‘perceived’ limitations and inabilities. 

They are also referred as people with Neurodiversity.

Thus they are unable to get into employment after the age of 18 (upon leaving school). The Covid-19 situation has further narrowed their options to earn a living since there are more people now seeking jobs and alternative opportunities for a living.

The local welfare department statistics shows that the Special Needs people only consist of 0.37% of the total current workforce. 

We at Infinite Minds train these people on various Digital tech skills eg. creating animations, 3D designing & printing, coding etc. Through these skills acquired they are then guided to market their services on Online portals and E-commerce websites. 

In addition our academy runs its own e-mall known as the MySpecialMall.com which only markets products and services of the special needs and marginalised communities. Here they are given direct opportunity to market their products and services exclusively. Our present students are able to generate income by coming up with competitive commercial services eg advertisements, clips, digital designs, souvenirs etc. 

Eventually these people form a large pool of resources in the country, and effectively removing the need of dependence on authorities for handouts and donations.

We have moved on to training them via Online since the beginning of the Covid-19 situations i.e. the pandemic became a blessing in disguise and we have been able to scale to a much wider range of students worldwide. 

The special needs kids in the K-12 level i.e. those with Autism, Asperger's, Down Syndrome, Dyslexia etc. naturally are unable to compete well in academics compared to their peers. Their neurodiversity nature causes them often to be perceived as not being smart or difficult to deal with. They fall in the category of 'learning difficulties' spectrum.

Despite this fact, they continue to be placed in schools and eventually they are left to fend for themselves upon ending school at the age of 18.

Our aim is to divert the focus from academics alone to digital tech skills. By them picking up these digital tech skills from a young age, they will be prepared to move in life by taking up tech related jobs or become relevant gig workers later.

The beauty of it is, these Special needs kids are naturally good (most of the time) in digital tech programs, at times far better than the normal ones.

We can prepare them from the young age itself. Early intervention is extremely crucial to gain the maximum benefits and avoid any loss. 

 Below are statistics for your reference https://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/ind...

The number of PWD people has increased from 453,258 in year 2017 to 590,000 based on year 2020 data.

These people desperately need help in order to sustain in life and live with dignity.

The special needs youths particularly those with Autism and Asperger's syndrome are known to be multi-talented. Once they are given the right guidance and their hidden talent tapped, they're capably of producing wonders.

A direct example are; their ability to design and sell their own services and products Online. Thus making a living for themselves.

From our past projects and assignments, our students has been able to produce wonderful results.

We strongly believe that No individual should be left behind from advancing in today's digital age.

Types of services and products includes; commercial advertisements in 2D format, animated clips, souvenirs, digital-art designs and useful day to day products.

In recent days our present trainees have designed many products, one of it being face mask extenders. It has been well received all over. Presently it has been sold Online to buyers in the whole of Malaysia and also other countries eg. Singapore, UAE, USA, Canada and India. We are currently getting more inquiries from other countries.  In addition it has been supplied to Tesco Malaysia, IJN Foundation, Ministry of Women and Family Affairs, Federation of the Deaf Malaysia, AirAsia and various others.

As for services, our Animation clips in the form of advertisements too has been purchased by corporates. Thus, giving a channel of business to these Special Needs people.

All this has made them able to make a decent living from their hidden talents which we had tapped from younger ages, otherwise which would have gone unnoticed and wasted.

www.InfiniteMindsAcademy.com

The whole world is moving towards digitalisation. We strongly believe that no should be left behind. The pandemic has hasten the growth of Gig entrepreneurship. This co-incidentally is a good fit for the special needs people. 

The Special Needs people are known to being unable to socialise, shy, having fear in working outside their comfort area etc. Our solution will enable them to be able to work from home literally and take up the necessary job assignments and get paid accordingly. 

The advancement of technology has enabled the possibility of working from home for everyone including this group of people.

Thus, it is imperative that they should not be left behind in capturing this opportunity.

We strongly believe our solutions will really benefit these vulnerable communities, since it has been proven in our present academy practise.

In addition our psychologist team provides the necessary guidance and assistance whenever needed to ensure each participants benefit the most from our programs.

More info can be obtained on our website  www.InfiniteMindsAcademy.com and also our own multi-vendor mall www.MySpecialMall.com which is dedicated for the Special Needs people only.

Ms Kiren Kaur, the Founder and Managing Director of this unique academy known as Infinite Minds Academy.

Our approach focuses on the strengths of these special needs people. We discount all their other shortcomings.

If given the a chance and opportunity, these group of people are able to do much better the 'normal' people at many times.

Their ability to focus on details and perform repeated tasks of till perfection is indeed commendable especially coming up with ideas and designs which are 'out of the box' types.

Thus we believe and have seen them doing wonderful and going through life changing experience and moving on in life living with dignity.

We have successfully been operating and using our approaches. 
Students who had zero knowledge on computers (i.e. not even knowing how to switch on a computer), are now successfully been employed in IT firms.

There are works of these people particularly animations clips which are sold commercially and generated income for them.
Their design has been converted to products and sold globally, earning them a revenue to self-sustain.

We are moving on with more of these as there's no stopping to their creativity. 

Our solution is totally dependent on technology. These programs are based on existing technology and are customised for the special needs people for their benefit. 

The hardware used are mainly personal computers of mid range capacity.

In addition, their completed projects be it services or products are marketed at our specific website known as MySpecialMall.com. This multi-vendor site only markets products of the special needs people only.

Our solutions enables people who are marginalised to have an opportunity to make a dignified living.

They have been silently suffering in the background without any real attempt made to uplift or empower them.

We strongly believe with our solutions, they will be able to make a change in their lives by being able to earn independently.

As an example, an autistic person who joined us, aged 31 had been sitting idle in his house over the years since age 19 due to not being able to land a decent job partly due to his academic results and mainly due to his nature which is prone to getting bullied.

However upon joining our classes, he had picked up animation and designing skills in the past 3 years.

This had enabled him to become a freelance animator today and earns a decent monthly income.

The neurodiverse people or referred as the Special Needs people (autistic, Asperger's syndrome, dyslexia etc) i.e. the marginalised communities.

The neurodiverse people or referred as the Special Needs people (autistic, Asperger's syndrome, dyslexia etc) i.e. the marginalised communities.

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1) Progress of each student in every 3 months

2) Income generated after 18th month

3) Review with all stakeholders quarterly

1) In next 1 year to empower an additional 150 new special needs people

2) In the next 3 years to cover atleast 3 countries in this region

3) In the next 5 years to make a global reach

We do require constant support and guidance to achieve this goal. 

We believe by implementing our current plan, we should be able to achieve this goals.

Acceptance of parents on the condition of their child.

Many parents do not wish to have their kids categorised as a special need thus remains in denial mode.

This results in, they withholding the actions of enrolling them to get them empowered.

1) Financing-  Limited financing at our end disables us to move fast in our expansion

2) Other - Creating awareness through seminars and showing the success stories

We initially ran Animation classes and Computer Game making for normal school goers in International schools in Kuala Lumpur from 2008. 
We were offered to do a trial run for a nearby school on Special Needs people in 2013. 

We were pleased to see their enthusiasm. They picked up very well and were looking forward for our classes every time and we fell for the level of their dedications and passion.  

The students excelled very well and many of them had fine skills (detailed oriented and focused) and at times better than any general students we had. 

We participated in an international competition known as CyberFair International in 2014. To our surprise they emerged platinum winners. 

Thereon our journey started, by channelling our resources to only focus on these underprivileged but talented people.

5 Full time

3 part time staff

2 contract staff

All the staff are well qualified and experienced.

Having the necessary skills and qualifications.

Our team lead has executed various successful ideas including setting up a separate e-mall for the provision of services and marketing of products of the special need people.

Many other achievements which are due the conceptualisation of our Team Lead can be shared.

Our local Human Resource ministry's agency known as Human Recourse Corporation and the SME Corporation has been giving us full support in training these special needs people.

We sincerely wish to be given a chance to have our service shared globally in the coming years.