#WeAre2030: Empowering young start-ups

By Shannon Jayawardena

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) with the aim of empowering young entrepreneurs held a youth dialogue under the title ‘#WeAre2030: Youth Dialogue and Incubation Program’ on 7-8 November in Colombo.

The two-day Dialogue hosted by the UNDP collaborated with the Ministry of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure, the Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs, the National Youth Services Council (NYSC), the Information and Communications Technology Agency (ICTA) and Unilever to bring together young people to create a youth dialogue on entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership in Sri Lanka.

Addressing the youth, Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs Niroshan Perera stated: “The Government of Sri Lanka, UNDP and all other partners have come together to empower young people and to place them at the centre of the development process.”

“The Government’s vision 2025 and the 2030 sustainable development agenda give us a solid foundation to connect with youth from all over Sri Lanka and to tap their potential to power the country towards a bright future. This programemphasises on innovative talent, providing a platform for young people to come with solutions for development challenges in the community,” he added.

The Asia Pacific region is home to 60% of the world’s youth and in Sri Lanka 23.2% of the population is of young people. Thereby through social innovation and entrepreneurship, this majority can take control of their future and create a great impact through creativity in the community.

UNDP Country Director Jorn Sorensen said: “As UNDP, we remain committed to the youth empowerment agenda and having young people at the heart of our development work. Over the years we have remained as a key partner working to empower our younger generation. We are working both through UNDP-led initiatives and through inter-agency collaboration within the wider UN system to engage young women and men as transformative actors for change.”

The event invited many stakeholders and leading business men and women to share their experiences with the young who were present and opened up a platform for them to speak about the issues that were pinpointed as the most crucial and brought about new ideas and solutions for the problems.

Realising the vision where young people play a greater role in being drivers of change and speaking about the private sector’s role in youth development, Unilever Sustainable Business and Communications Head Saumya Perera advised the youth: “Whatever we do it’s very important to have positive energy because with positive energy comes our capability to really perform and that energy is what identifies ourselves.”

The forum also emphasised on the fact that it is cardinal to possess authentic leadership which is what defines who you are as a person and a leader. Like so to succeed, the youth must look at the long term solutions to their problems career wise for that is what helps them grow. Finally purpose, which is most salient and plays the most important part in one’s succession.

Education however is also a key component when it comes to this success for it creates a mind-set that is strong enough to tackle challenges in a more wholesome manner. Speaking on this,University of Colombo Professor Siri Hettige stated: “You have to make sure that the young people move away from their present status and move on to learn and grow. For this education is the key and its constitutional reform is very important.”

The youth are the present and the future of today’s world and possess many creative and innovative capabilities. This potential has to be recognised not only for their benefit but for the society as well. Hence this Dialogue promotes the role of youth entrepreneurship as a driver for social change in Sri Lanka and across 15 different countries as well.

Thereby the event gave the youth the opportunity to share ideas on how to bring out leadership to create an equal society, deprived of all cultural norms or division to form a country filled with humanity and unity.

For this very reason the forum invited Selyn Handlooms CEO Selyna Peiris to share with the participants her journey on how she as a local youngentrepreneur achieved great heights not only by creating a powerful business but by giving women the opportunity to pursue a career.

“We are in the traditional handloom sector of the country and we work with about 1000 women, who are not able to employ themselves in any other industries due to various issues such as cultural stereotypes. So we work with them to create beautiful sarees and products” said Peiris.

While the first day focused on building leadership the second day focused on innovation and entrepreneurship. The young people are the critical agents of change, they understand the reality and they are the future. They are the heart of innovation and thereby need to be challenged and encouraged to take up leadership.

MillenniumIT Delivery Head Chris Foulkes who was a panellist on day two emphasised on innovation and entrepreneurship saying: “Innovation doesn’t really have to be logical, it doesn’t have to be really complicated or dramatic as long as it’s something that improves the world.”

Pivoting on entrepreneurship a puppetry was showcased under moderator Deshani Senanayake while a forum theatre was held under the development of youth skills by “Act 4”. The non-profit organisation brought a lively message as of how to strengthen and encourage young entrepreneurs by creating an atmosphere of fun and excitement through music and theatre.

UNDP together with the Ministry of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure launched a two-day innovative initiative, “HackaDev,” that gave the opportunity to teams from all nine districts to tackle a development programme thought innovation.

At the closing ceremony the nine provincial winners of HackaDev who completed this parallel two-day National Incubation programme were awarded and granted seed funding by Minister of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure Harin Fernando.

Minister Fernando said: “When I see the talent and when I had the opportunity to speak to the youngsters I was really surprised and amazed.That’s the actual feeling I got. When I was in Uva Wellassa once when I spoke to few youngsters, the knowledge they had, the thinking they had was amazing.”

Jaffna Cluster: team Psycoders, team Strangers, and team ZEON, Matara Cluster: Inglorious Masters, team Paradox and team Zeroth, Badulla Cluster: team Athena, Transcoders and Eastern Cyber were the nine teams that were awarded as the HackaDev winners.