A Conceptual Masjidcast Business Model: Enhancing Digital Skills of Masjid Community and Nurturing B40s as Balanced Digital-preneurs

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to conceptualise the business model of MasjidCast which aims to redefine and maximise the mosque’s functions revolving sharing of knowledge, skills and values including building and enhancing digital competencies among B40s (referring to the community of low-income category in Malaysia) and masjid community to nurture them becoming digitally competent content creators and entrepreneurs. In this new era of the Great Reset, post-Covid19 and digital, there has been low interest in the pursuit of knowledge due to digital distractions. Also, the spread of knowledge skills in the mosque in the form of lectures and practical workshops are not archived and often reach only a small fraction of the community. There are also challenges especially for the older demographic of people who are physically unable to attend lectures hosted in mosques. This paper adapts the design thinking methodology which encompasses empathising and defining the problem; as well as ideating, prototyping and testing the viable solution. To tackle these problems, MasjidCast will challenge the status quo of social media in order to provide interactive forms of knowledge and skills. MasjidCast will be a free product for users to ensure knowledge is always accessible for all customer segments. Business models of products will be benchmarked - like Google Classroom, Edpuzzle and Netflix, in terms of providing structured lectures and hands on courses streams. Conceptually, MasjidCast will provide: (a) open access video-on- demand (VOD) and live streaming lectures and hands-on courses, (b) lectures that consist knowledge of individual obligation (fardu ayn) and communal obligation (fardu kifayah), (c) interactive discussions through forums among the Muslim community, and (d) acts as a smart education hub to be integrated with educators’ classrooms syllabus. MasjidCast will reach out to learners and educators that are in the pursuit of knowledge, the B40 group that are looking for re-&up skilling lectures, and advertisers that will be able to promote Muslim products. MasjidCast will also implement revenue sharing and waqf-fund to benefit the mosques in Malaysia.