FWD Takaful Berhad (“FWD Takaful”) together with Arus Education Sdn Bhd (“Arus Academy”) are calling for 30 Malaysian youths to participate in the Digital Financial Inclusion Challenge 2020 (“DFIC 2020”), a three-week online programme and competition to explore innovative solutions to achieve financial inclusion for targeted communities through microtakaful. 

Salim Majid Zain, FWD Takaful’s Chief Executive Officer, said, “We’re excited to continue charting new territories to promote takaful literacy and advocacy. We want to change the way our youths feel about takaful through this nation-building initiative by empowering and enabling their innovation and creativity so that together, we can realise our ambition to bring financial inclusion to more segments of our community.”

The challenge aims to motivate youths to think about long-term takaful solutions as well as advocacy strategies. The participants, in teams of five, will then compete to deliver a proposal on how the adoption process of takaful can be designed differently for identified target groups, such as: 

• single mothers
• entrepreneurs
• the disabled
• low-cost housing residents (PPR)
• university students or 
• those financially impacted by COVID-19

Participants will explore financial inclusion frameworks as well as research and analyse global case studies. They will then use design thinking to ideate and build prototypes guided by mentors who are experts in the industry. 

Alina Amir, co-founder of Arus Academy, adds, “We’re confident that the outcome of this initiative will not only put some new ideas on the table, but also help to steer our young people to channel their academic skills towards efforts or causes that empower the communities that they belong in or can relate to.”