Sunday, September 28, 2008

Unleash It !- A Global Entrepreneurship Week Signature Activity

Someone asked me today, how can he participate in this activity. Here it is:

There is no shortage of challenges for mankind in the 21st Century. Everyday someone finds a smarter way to use resources more efficiently.

Everyday humans find new conveniences or ways to improve our quality of life. But every day too, countless ideas never come to the surface leaving problems unsolved and opportunities missed simply because no one lit the candle.

Unleash It!
-has people thinking differently about what it means to be entrepreneurial—new needs and problems are linked to enterprising problem- solvers across the globe, unleashing creativity and
innovative solutions to challenges around the world.

Have a problem that could benefit from a fresh group of innovative thinkers? Upload it.

Have an idea on how to solve a posted challenge? Unleash it.

Who knows... you might just discover the next big idea. When you submit a challenge or post a
solution, you enter a world without borders where entrepreneurship is your only passport and access to a computer or cell phone your only tools. .

A problem in Botswana can be solved by a team who met inside unleashingideas.org from China, Peru and Norway. An idea from a student in rural Canada opens up a solution to traffic congestion in Nairobi.

HOW IT WORKS

Anyone can upload a challenge—whether it is local, national or global—into a database of
challenges.

Visitors to the site can search the challenges and rate them in terms of importance. The highest rated challenges get the most visibility. Any person—or group of individuals—can upload a proposed solution to any of the challenges. These solutions can be rated as soon as they are posted—again, the highest rated get the most visibility.

SPONSORED CHALLENGES

If you think the other challenges are too easy, your country’s Partner organizations might
consider recruiting a team of young people to tackle one of the Sponsored Challenges.

These challenges come with a reward attached—determined by its sponsor—for the person or
team with the best idea. Solutions to these challenges are kept private and will not be
unveiled on the site until any “winners” are selected during the Week.

GET INVOLVED: THE CHALLENGES

E-mail Unleash It! challenges to challenges@unleashingideas.org . They will be added to the Unleash It! website as soon as it launches.

Anyone can post a challenge – a team or an individual. All you need is an idea, and all it takes is an e-mail. Challenge problems can be large or small-scale, local or global.

Your challenge can touch everyone on the planet – or it may seem insignificant at the start. Who knows what will happen when great ideas are unleashed?

GET INVOLVED: THE SOLUTIONS

As with challenges, individuals or teams can post solutions.

Solutions can be a sentence long, or they can come in the form of a fifty-page business plan.

Submit your sketches, blog posts with comments, web applications – there’s no one way to solve a challenge.

Sign up for our newsletter at www.unleashingideas.org to be notified when challenges are ready to be solved.

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I hope many organizations will come forward to participate in this simple yet an innovative challenge. Who knows, we may be able to find the next Google, right here at our doorstep !

Malaysia Boleh !

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