Empowering Entrepreneurs in Asia

As Global Entrepreneurship Week comes to a close, all eyes are on Korea and the Startup Nations Summit, a gathering of startup-savvy policymakers and proponents of smarter entrepreneurial research and policy starts on November 23. The Summit includes the World Startup Competition, in which 40 startups from around the world compete, a number of successful entrepreneur speakers, tech demos, exhibits and more.

While we need to wait until next week to find out who wins that competition, Indonesian startup eFishery took home a different prize last night when it won the Get in the Ring global finals in the Netherlands. The startup takes a data-driven approach to automatic fish feeding. Its smart aqualife feeding system can sense the fish’s appetite and be monitored and controlled through a smartphone or tablet connected to a network. The product is aimed toward large-scale hatchery operations that require efficient feeding solutions.

GEW was celebrated in 36 countries this week in Asia. Below are a few highlights of the week.

Indonesia

The Ciputra Foundation, the official GEW host organization in Indonesia, collaborated with the US embassy in Jakarta, USAID, US-ASEAN Business Council and ACTI (ASEAN Connectivity through Trade and Investment) to support the Global Entrepreneurship Week Indonesia Summit 2014. The US embassy hosted a welcoming and networking dinner on November 20 which connected the Indonesian business and investor communities, the representatives of the Indonesian government, Indonesian state-owned enterprises with their US and ASEAN counterparts. The agenda of the evening among others was the introduction of the Global Entrepreneurship Index and discussion on the preparedness of the local ecosystem towards the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community 2015.

Nepal

As part of GEW, GEW Nepal hosted a number of competitions to promote entrepreneurial thinking.

• Ideas for free society Expressing Ideas for a Free Society is a competition that Samriddhi, the host organization for GEW in Nepal, is organizing targeted towards young students from colleges. This is a contest where students will be asked to present their understanding of short write-ups by five prominent world renowned Freedom Champions. Students will be asked to present their understanding of the articles through the use of creative mediums such as power point presentation, short videos, poem, drams, song etc. All the winners will get the chance to participate in Asia Liberty Forum 2014 being held in Kathmandu.
• Gari Khana Deu essay competition Gari Khana Deu “Aspirations for Free Enterprise”, a nationwide essay competition is asking for essays on the following topics: Rule of law: Positive steps to ensure better implementation of rule of law; Security of life and property: The status of property rights’ dispute and what can be done to ease up the situation; Freedom to enterprise: Entrepreneurship in relation to regulatory hurdles and Economic freedom and flourishing entrepreneurship.
• Debate Competition Debate is a method of interactive and representational argument and it is a broader form of argument than deductive reasoning, which only examines whether a conclusion is a consequence of premises, and factual argument. Some of the selected topics for this year are ‘Profit making is good’, ‘role of government’, ‘flat tax versus progressive tax’ and ‘communism versus capitalism’.

Philippines

Among the many exciting events GEW Philippines organized during GEW was the SME Expo. With over 20,000 visitors in three days, the expo showcased over 200 businesses.

GEW Philippines will end this weekend with a big celebration at the second annual Failing Forward Conference with over 700+ entrepreneurs and startup delegates. The conference will feature best-selling authors, TV personalities, celebrities and top entrepreneurs who will share their early journey in entrepreneurship and lessons learned that made them successful today.

Vietnam

GEW Vietnam embraced the WED theme and celebrated with a seminar “Entrepreneurship in Smart Economy” for women entrepreneurs on November 19, 2014.

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the official GEW host organization in Vietnam, coordinated with Microsoft, VP Bank to organize a seminar on “Entrepreneurship in smart economy,” one of GEW Vietnam’s anchor events. There were more than 100 female entrepreneurs, representatives from women business associations, policy makers participated in the seminar. The female business community was inspired by Jeff Hoffman, GEW board member and co-founder of Priceline.com, on the entrepreneurship. The seminar discussed business startup in Vietnam, entrepreneurship in smart economy, SMEs in the new stage of development of the country, IT solutions for women entrepreneurs, etc. The seminar was an opportunity to celebrate, support and empower women entrepreneurs in Vietnam.