SBM ONLINE: The School of Business Management (SBM), Universiti Utara Malaysia has conducted an Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship Seminar under the Entrepreneurial Enhancement and Sustainability Program (LESTARi). The program was conducted on 18^th April 2018 for Phase 1-2, and 25^th April 2018 for Phase 3-4.  The event was supervised by SBM LESTARi’s team led by Dr Armanurah Mohamad. The LESTARi members involved were Assoc. Prof Dr. Norashidah Hashim, Dr. Sahadah Abdullah, Dr. Awanis Ku Ishak and Dr Shamsul Huda Abd Rani. LESTARi is a social entrepreneurial activity involving teachers and staff from two (2) private religious schools in Kubang Pasu, Al-Azhar Education Center (PPAZ), Jitra, Sekolah Agama At-Toyyibah, Changlun and two (2) private religious schools in Perlis, which are Ma'ahad Attarbiyah Al-Islamiyah (MATRI), and Sekolah Rendah Agama Attabiyah Al-Islamiyah (SRAATI). Apart from SBM's academic staff, this LESTARi program also involves the industry, namely Perniagaan Qurba Sdn Bhd as a strategic collaboration partner to LESTARi.

The LESTARi's objective is to expose private religious schools to entrepreneurial activities that can generate business opportunities for schools. LESTARi also aims to engage the management team and teachers of private religious schools with entrepreneurial characteristics to produce teachers and staff with intrapreneur and entrepreneurs characteristics. In addition, LESTARi also aims to develop a community that can contribute back to the society and help develop a more balanced human capital that can be independent and benefit the institutions. To preserve entrepreneurial activities at private religious schools involved, LESTARi SBM's team along with a few industrial partners will assist in developing a sustainability plan for the entrepreneurial projects to all the private religious schools involved.

The LESTARi event which was conducted in Social Entrepreneurship Seminar for Phase 1-2 is the Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Experience Sharing Session, Identifying Business Opportunities and Business Model Canvas (BMC). While Phase 3-4 is the Business Plan Development and Business Pitching. On top of that, the LESTARi program is also inspired by the social entrepreneurship motivation delivered by the Assistant Vice Chancellor of College of Business (COB) and the Dean of SBM, Prof. Dr Haim Hilman Abdullah.

The program outcomes are expected to provide exposure and entrepreneurial access to all private religious schools involved to be engaged in generating their own income through entrepreneurial activities. Hence, it is hoped that the LESTARi program will help the institution of private religious school to reduce dependency on financial aid by external parties.