Global Startup Youth is back, this time with Asean focus

• Youth urged to help solve problems facing Asean communities and people
• 3-day bootcamp followed by 3mth acceleration for winning teams

NON-profit StartupMalaysia.org has officially announced the Asean edition of its Global Startup Youth (GSY) event, aiming to bring 300 young leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs from the 10 Asean countries to come together for three days to work on some of the problems that are unique to the region.
 
GSY (pic above) made its debut in 2013 as a side event at the Fourth Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) held in Kuala Lumpur, which brought together 500 youth – 250 from Malaysia and 250 from 105 countries – to help “solve the world’s biggest problems.”
 
GSY Asean, which will take place from March 19-21, seeks to focus on problems in Asean, including issues to do with living in this region, as well as education and the environment, StartupMalaysia.org said in a statement.
 
It will comprise a three-day bootcamp, followed by a three-month acceleration programme for five winning teams.
 
As with the original GSY event, GSY Asean is also supported by the Malaysian Government through the Ministry of Finance (MOF).
 
It will be held in conjunction with the 1 Asean Entrepreneurship Summit (1AES). Another related event is Cradle Buzz, organised by MOF agency Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, which will bring together some of the biggest names in the regional startup scene to highlight, analyse and discuss entrepreneurship concerns in the region.

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StartupMalaysia.org said it is not looking for “me-too,” Silicon Valley copied solutions such as the next Facebook for the Philippines or a variation of Instagram for Cambodia.
 
“We want participants them to think about problems that we as Asians face in our daily life,” said StartupMalaysia.org founder Dhakshinamoorthy ‘Dash’ Balakrishnan (pic), also a Digital News Asia Digerati50.
 
“For example, the issue of elderly parents – Asians do not usually abandon them, and we tend to live in extended families. How does one care for them whilst the children are busy chasing their careers? How can they be kept occupied, their medical requirements tended to, and so on?” he added.
 
GSY Asean will have 30 mentors from across the region who will work with teams to come up with solutions.
 
Five winning teams comprising three members per team will be selected from the bootcamp. Each founding member must be from a different country.
 
This will be followed by a three-month acceleration programme, where the teams will be given an RM25,000 (approximately US$7,000) investment by private funders to work on prototypes and customer discovery. During this period, they are required to be in Kuala Lumpur.
 
In November, at the second edition of GSY, these teams will be put in front of investors, StartupMalaysia.org said. For more information or to apply, click here.
 
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