"Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom" ! MyGEW09 Is Going to Rock !

"Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom" is a "common misquotation of Chairman Mao Zedong's "let a hundred flowers bloom".

Chairman Mao is not necessarily the apt mascot for entrepreneurship but that quote, every time I hear it, never failed to inspire.

This is what will happen for GEW'09 : we plan to let a thousand flowers bloom. We want to see 1000 new enterprises begin this year - no matter in which area ! One Thousand Flowers Has to Bloom !

Come to the GEW Partners Meet tomorrow : 4 to 6pm, NSTP Office, Jalan Riong.

Share your plans to inspire Enterprise and we will share ours !

Cheers

TEDxKL & GEW

I wish to take this opportunity to apologize to the organizers and attendees of TEDxKL recently for "shamelessly selling" GEW!

The event was on 3rd June, at the Gardens KL.

I was invited by the organizer, Daniel Cerventus when he was in my office for a meeting. As he was leaving he asked me if I will be available to speak at TEDxKL .

I asked him what I should speak about and he said, "GEW".

So, I registered in my mind that this will be a good opportunity to promote the concept of the Global Entrepreneurship Week.

It was a busy period for me as we were was busy with many proposals and tenders.

I then completely forgot about the event and carried on at my usual "feverish pace of working" - as my wife would call it.

One evening a few days before the event, I saw Daniel online and asked him when TeD was and he replied "Wednesday" !

I realized it was already Monday and typed "what do I talk about?" and he said "success stories about GEW".

I did not realize what this meant nor did I know what TEDxKL was about let alone Do's and Don'ts for this event. What I should have done is to do some research on the protocols of TED.

So what did I do ?

I arrived at the event an hour before my talk, finalized the standard slides and simply spoke about GEW, the success last year and our vision this year and happily invited the attendees to come for the 1st partners' meet on the 12th at 4pm at the NSTP office in Jalan Riong

What was I thinking of?

I was under the impression I was talking about the idea of "a global movement of entrepreneurial people" and promoting entrepreneurship. But what it turned out was that we were selling or pitching ! We were "shamelessly promoting" !

Actually I promoted all my partners shamelessly. I think they, those great people need to be acknowledged.

However, this ruffled some feathers and the host was not pleased. I should have known better.

I deeply regret and apologize for the goof up ! Lets move on..

On another note..

We are going to be having the 1st GEW Partner's Meet on the 12 June between 4pm to 6pm.

The Venue is the NSTP office in Jalan Riong. Come early to find parking.

Hope to see you all there.

Together , let have an awesome GEW09 and lets put Malaysia once again on the map.

Cheers

SIFE - UniTAR Visit by Emily and Vivian

Here's is a contribution by Emily on her visit to Sife Unitar with Vivian :

"Today Vivian and I were warmly welcomed by Zul and Shafiq from SIFE's National Office and the team from SIFE UniTAR at their Kelana Jaya campus.

Zul heads Sife in Malaysia.

We introduced GEW to the participants. We shared successes of 2008 and our plans for 2009.

The students were a smart and already enterprising lot.

They were excited and was eager to be partner and plan activities - and they started enthusiastically coming up with ideas on the spot - fabulous!

SIFE UniTAR is making plans to create more awareness for GEW.

Sife, wants to see more students get on board and be involved in the exciting GEW activities being planned this year.

We're truly thrilled to have SIFE UniTAR on board.

We always look forward to engaging young people and in creating awareness of entrepreneurship in our institutes of higher learning.

A special thank you to SIFE for their support in introducing us to their campuses.

SIFE's National Competition is a GEW activitiy.

Thank you Zul and Shafiq - for joining us to help students in Malaysia become part of the "global movement of entrepreneurial people"

Cheers

Brewing !

I admit I have not been very regular in updating the blog recently.

This is because the team and I have been working behind the scenes to put everything in place for GEW2009 in Malaysia to take off smoothly.

Once again this year, we hope to play a small role in helping to "push the awareness of entrepreneurship" and "to ignite an enterprising behavior" amongst young people towards its tipping point !

The important thing here is that we don't know where or what the "tipping point" of this awareness is !

This makes the journey all the more exciting because then we can only set ourselves stretch goals.

What are our goals this year, what the our aspirations are and what plans to we have for MyGEW 2009 - all this will be revealed in the coming blog posts and also our newly launched website www.gewmalaysia.com.

Senedi Sdn.Bhd (www.senedi.com) designed and hosted the GEW Malaysia site as their sponsorhip.

We once again thank Senedi for this.

Cheers and Here's to Rocking Entrepreneurship in Malaysia !

Facebook Hour with Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah

It was 5.27pm - I was driving back to KL from Cyberjaya after a presentation to a client and I got an sms from Shamsul, the ever hardworking but always in great spirits like his boss - the aide of Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah, the Deputy Minister of Higher Education.

The sms read "FB Hour with Dato, today @ Pelita, Jalan Ampang, 11pm to 12 am" !

I thought I will wait to get to my destination to read the sms again - I need my reading glasses these days to make sense of anything written ! Must be the scorching sun !

I read the sms again at the traffic lights - yes 11pm to 12am !! I smsed Shamsul to say I will be there.

Apparently Dato' had to attend a function with the PM at the Mandarin Oriental earlier that evening and he could only do his fortnightly Facebook Session at this hour.

Dato Saifuddin Abdullah goes online every fortnight (Wednesdays) on Facebook for an hour.

During this hour, he chats with young people, university students and others who wish to chat with him for the entire hour.

I witnessed Dato on FB firsthand last night. He was chatting and answering questions himself.

There were at least 40 people on the queue waiting to chat with him online. To top it of there were at least 20 young university and college students around him - sipping their teh tariks and having their mee gorengs, roti chanai and thosais. The kids must have been between 20 to 25.

I sat silently and observed everything that was going on. Dato was earnestly answering questions. The questions too, where I could peek and read, were mostly relevant. Where he was not able to offer a solution immediately, Shamsul was there to give his mobile and email details for follow-up action.

I am not sure how many politicians are this net savvy and take the trouble to actually chat with youth. But this man had them eating out of his hands - his good nature and sincerity is unmistakable - no I am not polishing apples here. You have to know Dato and see him in action to see what I mean.

I then chatted with Dato's wife for a while. She is an extremely pleasant and simple lady. Always ready with a genuine smile - unlike many Datins we meet. She is an engaging conversationalist too - likes to chat on simple matters with the youth who take to her like ducks to water.

After about an hour and a half of pounding on the keyboard, with Maxis Broadband serving him unfailingly, Dato logged off to join everyone for teh tarik and to chat with the rest of the "gang". I looked around and decided I was contributing to the increase of the average age of the group and politely took my leave.

But before I left I took note of the conversations these young people were having with him - no they were not lobbying for projects etc like we jaded people do. They were all eager to solve problems, they had genuine interest in matters regarding higher education, the internet, knowledge etc.

I left, feeling good about the change that is slowly but surely happening in this country. Its beginning to take shape in mamak shops, in the pyche of the young and eager.

God bless this land !

Cheers

Announcing Cambridge University's Advanced Diploma in Entrepreneurship !

Friends and readers, I know I have been rather quiet and have not updated my blog for a while now - I beg your pardon.

I have been traveling, been on a short break and also been preparing for this very special event : the Introduction of Cambridge Advanced Diploma in Entrepreneurship program for Malaysian entrepreneurs, students, researchers and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Yes, this is an online program with 3 face to face sessions in the prestigious University.

More information on this unique Entrepreneurship program can be obtained from the here.

I am pleased to announce that the program is now available to all Malaysians and they can register directly with Cambridge University.

The closing date to send in your registration is : 1 June 2009.

Warisan Global is proud to be appointed the Ambassador for Malaysia for this Program and the Strategic Partner to the Centre for Entrepreneurship Learning (CfEL), Cambridge University.

We are hosting an event tomorrow to "Inform and Introduce" the Advanced Diploma from the prestigious University to the Entrepreneurial Community in KL.

The guest of Honour for this event is our newly appointed Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah and officials from the Ministry.

The event details are as follows :

Date : Thursday, 23rd April 2009

Time : 10:30am-1:30pm

Venue : Pacific Ballroom A, level 2, Best Western Premier Seri Pacific Hotel, Jalan Putra Kuala Lumpur

Be there to hear about the program and to meet the young, dynamic and articulate Deputy Minister of Higher Education.

Cheers

Thank You Marck Ortmans & the Amazing People at MYM !

Jeff Skoll was not the only extraordinary person I met during my week in London.

The people at Make Your Mark was awesome.

Marilise and Chris was extremely kind to gather this group of talented and smart MYMers around the table and gave us (Matt from Australia, David from Lebanon and me) a few minutes each to present GEW'08 in our respective countries.

I went first and showed our GEW08 slides, which, Vivian took great pains to prepare. The painful part in preparing slides is me, the one with ever shifting needs and ever increasing standards.

Thank you Marc Ortmans for these photos - if not for you, I would not have anything to show my team ;-)

Scott Cain, the breezy Deputy CEO of MYM is a man with the beat. Scott spent time, amidst his busy schedule talking to me about entrepreneurship and how to build a successful campaign.

Scott then introduced me to his team members, one by one. There was Phil Tubba of Social Enterprise, Tori James (the youngest British Lady to scale Mount Everest, check her out at www.torijames.com), Kate, Dr Dan the Digital Guru and many more extraordinary people.

I must have looked dazed and tired, the folks at MYM could tell. I was just exhausted from the travels but the mind was just taking in everything.

Finally, it was Oli, who came and spent time with us during dinner. Oli was also great, he came by the next day to attend the Young Brits Awards (more on it later) and walked me back to MYM office. We spent some time talking and catching up with things. Oli is keen to see Make Your Mark with a Tenner take off in Malaysia.

To all the folks in MYM and to Oli Barret : a huge THANK YOU for taking super care of me whilst I was there. Everyone of you deserve a huge hug ! I will do the same when you are in Malaysia...

Cheers