JAKARTA—Super app Grab has embarked on a massive initiative that will help usher in Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, to a new growth path driven by digitally enabled citizens, communities and businesses.
At the launch of Grab’s first Social Impact Report for 2019, Grab officials announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft to provide critical technological access to “Aseans” through 2025.
The report revealed that Grab contributed roughly $5.8 billion in the Southeast Asian economy over the last year ending March 2019.
Grab also provided business opportunities to a large number of Southeast Asians. Grab was also able to help 1.7 million micro entrepreneurs open their first bank accounts, and helped spur cashless transactions in the region by 9 times, per the report.
Under its Grab For Good initiative, Grab aims to improve digital inclusion and literacy in the region by providing 3 million people with access to digital education, leveraging on its platform, partnerships and people.
“Grab envisions to create economic access and digital equity for all in Southeast Asia. To achieve this vision of empowerment, inclusiveness, and hope, we are launching Grab For Good, a program aimed at creating access for the various communities in Southeast Asia,” Grab Group CEO Anthony Tan said.
Through its partnership with Microsoft, Grab will scout for universities in the region to design and implement a curriculum that best fits the rising digital trends across the globe.
Aside from this, the partnership with Microsoft will open up more learning opportunities for Grab’s partner-drivers, riders, and their families through the Grab app. Both initiatives will also be introduced in the Philippines.
These, Microsoft President for Asia Pacific Andrea Mattea said, will help upskill Aseans, bridging the tech skills gap in the region, as well as prepare them for the future.
“One of the challenges we see in the Asia Pacific is the democratization of education. We believe education should be accessible to everyone, specifically tech and digital literacy,” she said.
Aside from this, Grab also aims to play a larger role in the digitalization of Asean businesses, especially the micro, small and medium entrepreneurs, which account for roughly 50 percent of the region’s GDP.
To do this, Grab Cofounder Hooi Ling Tan said her group will apply the concept of creating economic opportunities at scale across multiple services beyond cars, food and payment.
“We now have the opportunity to help empower more than 9 million micro entrepreneurs, whether they are drivers, merchants, agent partners to earn an income in the Grab platform,” she said.
Through 2025, Grab aims to help over 5 million more traditional businesses, and small merchants digitize their workflows and processes.
GrabFood
In the Philippines, Grab is putting prime focus on developing GrabFood, its food-delivery service, to help small-time merchants such as Jolly Jeeps expand their reach through a digital storefront in the ubiquitous Grab app, and the extension of credit lines.
Grab Financial will soon offer micro entrepreneurs loans to merchants to enable them to grow their businesses, and bring greater financial inclusion to the country that has a lack of it.
“As Grab grows from milestone to milestone, we have an ever-growing responsibility to serve the communities that drive our business,” Anthony Tan said.