From Digital Experience to Entrepreneurial Capability: Supporting Asnaf Students Through Digital Entrepreneurship in Malaysia’s Halal and Zakat Ecosystem

Abstract

Malaysia's digital economy development is a great opportunity for equitable and inclusive economic participation, especially for underserved Asnaf students. The shift from daily digital penetration to actual entrepreneurial potential, however, is poorly understood. In the interest of filling this gap, and to help define a baseline for the Asnaf Innovative Digital Entrepreneurship Agenda (AiDEA) 2024, a university-level experiential learning program, this study looks into students’ initial digital familiarity, their level of confidence in creating content and their entrepreneurial intention. Drawing on a pre-event quantitative study on 163 Asnaf students, the results show that respondents, although having high pre-event digital exposure, show only intermediate levels of entrepreneurial intention and practical capability in content creation before the intervention. These results represent a clear “monetisation gap” between a passive consumption of digital platforms and the active creation process for businesses. Finally, this research highlights the significance of the AiDEA program and that combining Zakat-driven financial support with structured experiential digital entrepreneurship training is a key policy tool to promote the sustained digital empowerment of Asnaf students in the Halal ecosystem.