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Thursday Dec 12, 2024
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The SAARC CCI Startup Boot Camp was successfully held in Colombo from 13-14 December, organised by the SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SAARC CCI), in partnership with the
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Friedrich Naumann Foundation Sri Lanka Country Director Sagarica Delgoda addressing the young entrepreneurs at the opening session. |
Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) and in collaboration with the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL) and Academy of Digital Business (ADB). The boot camp was a training program for young Sri Lankan entrepreneurs who had just started their business ventures.
The boot camp held in Sri Lanka was the fifth training program in a series of SAARC CCI Boot Camps scheduled to be held in every country in South Asia.
In line with the recommendations of SAARC Startup Vision Summit 2018, the series of SAARC CCI Boot Camps are being organised with the intention of developing a mechanism to ensure cross-border learning, exposure and mentoring for startups and to strengthen startup ecosystems across South Asia, especially in South Asian countries with no startup ecosystems or the least developed startup ecosystems.
The first SAARC CCI Boot Camp was held in Kathmandu Nepal in April 2019, the second boot camp was staged in Dhaka, Bangladesh in June 2019, the third boot camp occurred in Male, in the Maldives in September 2019, the fourth boot camp was held in Lahore, Pakistan in October 2019 and the fifth boot camp was organised in Colombo.
The main objective of the SAARC CCI Boot Camp in Colombo was to guide and train young Sri Lankan entrepreneurs to lead their startups to the next level of their business ventures, to give them an opportunity to present their startups to a panel of mentors and business experts, thereby gaining their feedback on the startups, direct constructive advice and to give young trainers an opportunity to have access to valuable business networks across South Asia and beyond.
It was significant that over 40 selected young entrepreneurs and university business studies students actively participated in the training program. Sagarica Delgoda - Country Director, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom; Zulfiqar Ali Butt - Secretary General (Interim), SAARC CCI; Prasanna Liyanage - Immediate Past President, Colombo Chamber of Commerce; Waruna Dhanapala - Additional Secretary (Development), Ministry of Digital Infrastructure and Information Technology; Dr. Hugo Wisidagama - Founding Director at LDR Technology Ltd; Damith Gangodawilage - Chief Academic Officer, Academy of Digital Business; Kanishka Weeramunda - Founder PayMedia and Leading Business Mentor; the two Indian expert mentors Saravana Mani – Head, Open Innovation, and C. Subramanian - Author and International Sales Trainer and Tilan M. Wijesooriya - Associate Director, SAARC CCI Sub Office South, took part in the event as distinguished guests, mentors and resource people.
Delgoda, addressing the young entrepreneurs, stated: “In terms of a startup ecosystems in South Asia, we encounter terms such as ‘infancy’ (Nepal), ‘coming of age’ (Bangladesh), ‘making strides compared to the last few years’ (Pakistan, Sri Lanka) and ‘building up from zero’ (Bhutan). Although the Indian startup ecosystem has evolved dynamically over the last two decade, the ecosystem has not reached full maturity with lacunas in active investors and support organisations such as incubators and accelerators. Therefore, this particular series of programs conducted by SAARC CCI to boost startup ecosystems in South Asia is not only timely but has great value. FNF is proud to be a partner of such a program.”
The boot camp covered all important dimensions of the development of startups such as Idea Pivoting, Lean Converse Model, Design Thinking, Digital Quoting Improvement, Sustainable Digital Influence for a Startup, Financing and Compliance Management, Tales from the Trenches and Role Models. The training program was in fact rich in both theoretical perspectives and creative activities for the trainees. All the young trainees were awarded certificates at the closing ceremony of the SAARC CCI Boot Camp.
The young trainees were extremely happy about the training program of the SAARC CCI Boot Camp and they enthusiastically stated: “Thank you very much SAARC CCI organisers and expert mentors and all the great personalities for this opportunity and sharing your expert knowledge with us. It was an excellent workshop and we would like to take part in future SAARC CCI events as well. We would also like to suggest that at future programs it is better to have the participation of young entrepreneurs from South Asian countries at one common forum, giving us an opportunity to directly share experiences and knowledge with our counterparts in other South Asian countries. We again thank SAARC CCI very much for organising this wonderful boot camp in Colombo, Sri Lanka.”
