3M’s Commitment to Education

MySkills Foundation serves as a sanctuary for at-risk youth from disadvantaged backgrounds in Malaysia. The organization’s purpose is to provide a second chance for at-risk youth to acquire fundamental social, living and workplace skills to help them better integrate into mainstream society.

In 2020, 3M Malaysia partnered with MySkills Foundation to secure a 3Mgives Education Grant of USD 50,000 (RM 201,685.00) and launched the Sustainable Farming for a Sustainable Future program. The education and training program aims to promote sustainable agriculture as well as enhance the vocational and entrepreneurial skills among the youths. Leveraging on the existing plot of land within the MySkills Campus in Kg Baru Sejantung in Kalumpang, MySkills Foundation cultivated a farm where the youth beneficiaries were educated about multi-crop farming and composting food waste to be turned into organic fertilizer.

Additionally, 3M Malaysia wanted to design a program that will allow MySkills Foundation to independently generate income for the organization​. Therefore, in October 2021, the non-profit organization launched their latest e-Commerce venture on Lazada and Shopee to sell Vegetable Grow Kits and organic fertilizers which are products from the youth.

Besides being used for the training programs and funding the e-Commerce venture, the grant from 3M was also used to purchase machinery and equipment needed for the commercialization of the organic fertilizer as well as raw materials needed for the farm and Vegetable Grow Kit.

This program impacted 150 at-risk youths from disadvantaged and/or urban poor backgrounds.

According to the MOE's 2013 – 2025 National Education Blueprint, more than two-thirds of students in the majority of high-need schools in Malaysia come from challenging socioeconomic backgrounds.

Teach For Malaysia (TFM) aims to provide all children in Malaysia with excellent education and raise teaching as a profession of choice. Through TFM's rigorous recruitment and selection efforts, TFM recruits high performing and passionate individuals who champion for equal opportunity to excellent education.

As such, 3M awarded TFM with a $17,500 (>RM72k) grant which was used for:

• The Fund a Fellow program which sponsored and provided a high-need school with a teacher for a year
• Purchasing various teaching aids which includes a Van De Graaff generator, a 3D printer, laptops and other equipment for a school in Kepong
• The development of a sustainable farm called Projek Hijau which helps students from a school in Kepong gain practical understanding of the technology behind a garden aquaponic system

From the 26th of October 2020 to the 18th of December 2020, 3M Malaysia and MySkills Foundation organized a virtual online talent show contest called, MySkills Got Talent as part of 3M’s Global Volunteer Day program in 2020.

The purpose of the online talent show was to allow students to enhance their digital literacy and self-confidence by allowing them to showcase their talents online within a supportive community. Therefore, students were encouraged to persevere and find creative ways to hone their skills and talents amidst the uncertainty and challenges wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

To enter the contest, students of the MySkills Foundation were required to upload a 1-2-minute video of themselves or their group performing. The semi-finalists that made it to the top 20 were then paired with a 3Mer who provided virtual coaching. During these 1-1 virtual coaching sessions, 3M volunteers spent time getting to know the students and provided students with constructive feedback on how they could improve their performance. After the coaching session, students had the choice to re-upload their improved performances in the hopes of advancing to the final round of the competition. Eventually, the winners of the competition were decided by popular vote from 3Mers in Malaysia.

On the 4th of December 2020, Malaysia’s country leader, Mr. GT Lim spoke to more than 30 attendants of the iCUBE Coffee Connection 2.0 event about entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship opportunities in business.

Mr. GT Lim gave attendants an overview of 3M’s established history and emphasized how the company continues to remain innovative today. 3M’s humble beginnings in mining soon flourished into other business groups such as healthcare, safety and industrial, transportation and electronics, and consumer goods due to 3M’s spirit of entrepreneurism that lies at the core of the company. At 3M, Mr. GT Lim emphasized that people are celebrated for their entrepreneurship efforts, and not discouraged by their failures. However, intrapreneurship doesn’t always have to be in the form of creating a new product as there are always new ways of doing things such as process improvement which is equally as important for the continued growth of a company.

Afterwards, students were given an opportunity to engage in an interactive Q&A session with Mr. GT Lim in various Zoom breakout rooms throughout the session. In the last breakout room, students were given a fun challenge on the topic of road safety to solve alongside Mr. GT Lim’s guidance.

3M Customer Innovation Center (CIC) is a facility that is designed to showcase the breadth and depth of 3M technology and how we use 3M Science to improve lives.

Besides hosting customers, the CIC is also open to students as a way to spark the interest of STEM in students.

Some of the universities that we have engaged includes Lim Kok Wing University, National University of Malaysia and INTI College.

3M promotes lifelong oral health by developing innovative dental solutions, and providing dental practitioners with the knowledge to do so. Below are some of the engagements that is continuously conducted:

• Clinical hands on workshops in the Customer Innovation Center.
• Lectures and workshops to both private and government dentists.
• State level dental education talks for the Ministry of Health’s dentists.
• International speakers are invited to conduct lectures and hands-on workshops to local dentists.
• We collaborate with the Dental Student Association to organize competitions and dental student events.