KATHMANDU, Nov 21: Entrepreneurship is enterprising. Someone who manages a business speculating the accompanying risks, and receives either the resulting rewards or red ink accordingly is an entrepreneur. Channelizing the youth into entrepreneurship can be a sustainable approach of development for Nepal. With this realization, many enthusiastic Nepalis have been organizing different events on entrepreneurship.
Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp (GEB) session, organized by OYA Opportunities, a global platform for connecting active and ambitious youths of today, could be one of such forums that develop youth entrepreneurship by connecting Nepali youth to global entrepreneurs.
According to Bijay Rimal, OYA's planning and communication officer, GEB is inspired from the concept of global entrepreneurship that commenced from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs are the participants of GEB. This is an intensive educational and leadership session that brings together many young entrepreneurs from around the world and places them on a common platform to innovate and create new businesses by collaboration.
"The bootcamp is designed to groom innovations and new ideas into startups," Rimal said. "About one hundred participants are to take part in the session. Teams are prepared according to intersection of business ideas and 10 best business ideas are chosen via voting at the beginning. Then the teams are given three nights and four days to work on those ideas and the final result is presented among the participants. The winning business idea is decided via votes as well."
Fifth Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp held in Thailand
Surprisingly, the organizing team is small. They are all Nepalis of the age group 18-23 years. All the members are assigned roles in the fields of their corresponding abilities. OYA will recruit volunteers during the GEB session to support crowd management, food, accommodation and other logistics management.
Due to its many global partners, OYA has not found it to be much of a hassle regarding the event's publicity.
The first session of GEB was organized at Kakani in Kathmandu few months ago.
The bootcamp brought together 54 participants from 12 different countries and gave them the opportunity to share their entrepreneurial ideas with each other while learning from speakers who have real-world experience in the field.
The participants pitched some great ideas, all of which could have turned into real businesses.
The first session came up with some good business models: Chyine - a traditionally made alcohol is remade and sold commercially with much better quality, Let’s Connect - an online platform to connect investors with startups, Traveler’s Euphoria - a travel company that aims to connect people to the local culture of where they go, IDEBUS - a organization that works for self-development skills in youths, The Next Live - media that aims to give out the least-biased information to the consumers, Hire Any Photographer - online platform that connects people with photographers, Practical Education - an online based education company that offers courses to students from videos and exercises, Green Municipality - a social enterprise that aims to earn money by advertising while planting trees at local level, and Professional Social Network (Proso) - a new form of social media that connects people with similar tastes and opinions at the professional level.
The second edition of GEB is going to be organized in Bangkok, Thailand from January 15 to 18, 2018. Delegates from more than 50 countries are expected to participate.
"We couldn’t entertain enough international participation in the first edition due to expensive plane tickets," Rimal said. "So we decided to organize the second session in a common international hub easily and efficiently accessible worldwide. Thailand was the perfect place for that."
"The activities will be similar to the first edition, but with a diverse audience," Rimal added. The deadline to apply for the event is November 30. The organizers are planning the third edition of GEB in Paris, France.
"Our target is to go to at least 20 countries in a few years from now, exploring the entrepreneurship worldwide and translating that experience in our country for the youth," Rimal said.
