That was our office.

The entrance of our office circa 2006. Joel, our cofounder, at the corner of that tiny room.

There were very few of us, mostly fresh out of college. We were young and excited people who squeezed and huddled in a tiny workspace to drive our dreams toward reality.

Then our little team grew, and that very tiny little room was not enough to contain us.

We packed our bags, put our things into boxes, and carried ourselves to a brand new space in Kelana Square.

It was a pretty cool place.

Our boys hard at work. Yep, it took 3 full grown gentlemen to put up a pair of windowblinds.

We were all settled in, and we loved that cozy, medium-sized space. We threw loads of colors in, and it was like home to us.

But we expanded faster than we thought – and pretty soon, that space, too, was not enough to keep us in.

So we pulled out our cardboard boxes, and were on the move again.

The packing process can be tedious, yet fun. For more photos, head over to our Facebook album.

As believers of a positive, homey culture, we decided to choose a place where everyone would wake up everyday and look forward to coming to work. Soon before we knew it, we found ourselves a brand new space in Bukit Gasing – which our entire team has fallen completely in love with.

This is where we are at now. Welcome to The Top.

We turned an idyllic, dreamy white bungalow into our workspace.

The view inside.

One of the many little gardens within the space

One of the split level floors, which we use as collaboration space.

The view from above

The swimming pool, where we throw occasional parties

The amazing sun deck furnished with colourful bean bags, disco balls and starlights.

As we settled in on our first day on September 8th (8/9/10), our entire team sat down and reminisced on how far we’ve come.

It has been an incredible journey, and we look forward to many, many more adventures to come.

To all our clients, partners and friends, do drop by and say hi. We’d love to have you visit us. :)

You can find us at:

Youth Asia @ The Top
No. 13, Lorong 5/4B
Bukit Gasing, 46000
Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

Or, find us on Google Maps: http://goo.gl/maps/t2gv

We look forward to having you around :)

You read about The Festival in the papers and magazines.

You heard the shoutouts on radio.

You saw our students run up and down their campuses, persuading their peers to join them in the hundreds of exciting activities held at the Festival.

And most of all, you were an integral part of our online promotional campaign for YOUTH’10.

The 3-month public relations campaign for YOUTH’10 Malaysia’s Largest Youth Festival raked in RM6.7 million in media value this year, and was awarded the Malaysia Public Relations Awards 2010 under the category Promotional Activity of the year.

Big, big, BIG THANKS to our awesome communications partner Weber Shandwick for working with us throughout the 3 months. Also, a very very big thank you to our media partners for your ongoing support! The success would not have been made possible without you :)

• Fly FM (Official Radio Station)
• Hot FM (Official Radio Station)
• One FM (Official Radio Station)
• Gua.com.my (Official Portal)
• R.AGE by the Star (Official Youth Media)
• Malaysian Today (Official Youth Publication)
• 8TV
• TV3
• TV9
• Bernama TV
• Malay Mail
• Malaysian Reserve
• New Straits Times
• Berita Harian
• Harian Metro
• Utusan Malaysia
• Kosmo!
• Sin Chew Jit Poh
• Y! Mag
• Cleo
• Cosmopolitan
• ANIMAX

The Malaysia Public Relations Awards 2010 ceremony was held on 3 November 2010 at the Shangri-La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. The MPRA is an annual event by the Public Relations Consultants’ Association (PRCA) Malaysia to recognise the achievements of public relations professionals and the best PR campaigns over the year.

From the very bottom of our hearts, we thank you once again for your great, great support. This has been and will continue to be a very fun & exciting journey for us :)

For over 2 years, Youth Asia has been unleashing the power of collective influence through YouthSays. We discovered and unleashed the collective power of collaboration through the Youth Festival.

When 88,366 young Malaysians actively participated in YOUTH’10 Malaysia’s Largest Youth Festival, Ministers and CEOs who were amazed by the feat put a challenge upon us (organizer of YOUTH’10) to create a sustainable platform for young Malaysians to lead an exciting life.

In September 2010, we created GroupsMore, a movement focused on driving Malaysians to live an exciting life in this country – to squash the myth that Malaysians need to migrate to another country to live an exciting life.

While GroupsMore (short for groups save more) enables us to get together (by the hundreds or even thousands) to experience the best restaurants, spas, activities at up to 90% discount – saving us more money, it is not just an online shopping site that features the best deals in town.

GroupsMore is the start of a consumer movement.

Why?

It’s simple, really.

The bigger our group = the more influential we are =  the higher discounts we get = the more experiences we can enjoy = the less we pay. :)

Since we launched www.groupsmore.com (less than a month ago):

• Over RM15,000 was saved
• Over 2,500 people have subscribed
• Over 1,000 vouchers was bought

So visit www.groupsmore.com now and subscribe to us! We’re pretty sure you’ll find a discount on an exciting thing to do that you like! Even if you don’t, sign up anyways, join our movement and pretty soon, we will be demanding for discounts to do and experience new things that you’d love at the lowest price possible.

It was crazy. We had over 100 activities, and in 3 days, hundreds of youths were rewarded in the competitions they won.

In 2009, the same thing happened, but on a larger scale. YOUTH’09 took a leap up the scale. We got a larger place. Over 300 volunteers signed up to help out, and had the experience of their lifetime. Youths invited friends, who invited friends, who invited friends – and more communities, businesses, leaders and government agencies stepped in to show their support.

What about the recent YOUTH’10?

It was BIGGER and BETTER.

The Festival was created for one purpose: to connect a generation of savvy youths with brands, leaders, government and the media. And it was a great success.

This year’s festival brought together 47 partners, 22 media partners, 10 youth communities, 230 schools, 40 colleges, and 4 ministries to produce a 3 days festival with over 180 activities across 6 festivals, bringing together 88,366 youths and generating 6.7m worth of PR value.

Imagine the craze.

Leaders showed their support by officiating ceremonies, touring the Festival and even entering the competitions!

The media was nothing but supportive throughout the entire Festival. Here’s what they had to say:

Participants loved it. Our partners loved it. The media loved it. And we loved it!

Looking at the success of YOUTH’10, the Youth Asia team is more excited than ever about the next Youth Festival.

YOUTH’11 is currently in its planning stage. It will be even BIGGER, even BETTER, more exciting and more engaging!

Stay tuned for updates on YOUTH’11!

The day that I leave this office finally came.

To be completely honest, there’s a sinking feeling in my chest. I don’t like it. Maybe I’ve just got too comfortable here.

You guys are more than just mere colleagues. Hell, you crackers are more than friends to me. I see you guys as family, as siblings.
Which makes it a whole lotta hard to let go.

It’s time to close this book, and open a new one. And I know I have all of your blessings to go out and do what I wanna do.

Forgive me for any of my wrongdoings. I’m sorry if I offended you with the way I speak. I’m sorry if I accidentally raised my voice at you. I’m sorry if I got snappy. I’m sorry for isolating myself for way too long. I’m sorry.

But at the same time thank you.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn so much.
Thank you for taking a risk with me.
Thank you for believing in me and my limited abilities.
Thank you for the random hugs, the jokes and the laughs.
Thank you for turning me into a much, much happier person than I was before.
Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

But it’s not like I’m gonna die or anything right? So if you just feel like hanging out, I’m just a phone call/text/tweet away. Drop me an email. I’ll drop by the office lor to visit. And I’ll bring cookies :D

“Weekend warriors and our best friends
The writers weren’t kidding about how all good things must end
Then again some things, then again some things are far too good
Some things are far too good to go ahead and let go

Always up or down, never down and out
Dream of demons when you speak, that make you stutter when you sleep
Always up or down, never down and out
Dream of demons when you speak, that make you stutter when you sleep
Sleep now or forever hold your peace

We won’t forget Tony or Johnny
No matter how they miss us they still wish us the best on the road
Garrett took a plane to Paris, France
Now he’s cooking up entrees for the pretty pretty French girls
Bookends, Blue and Clarity to The Wall and Grace
Darkside, Wish and a toast to the Late Figure 8
Weekend warriors and our best friends
The writers weren’t kidding but the good things will live in our hearts”
- ‘Down and Out’ by The Academy Is (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQQNSMJ6me8)

This is a blog post I made yesterday, but it’s in Bahasa Malaysia. If you wanna read it, this is the link. :)

You guys are amazing. Don’t let other people tell you otherwise.

Forever grateful – your ex-colleague, your friend
Lina Halizah binti Abdul Halim

Our co-founders, Joel Neoh and Khailee Ng  were selected to represent Malaysia in the One Young World, a global leadership summit for young leaders. The inaugural summit took place on Feb. 8-10, 2010, in London.

During the One Young World Summit, together with 1000 young pioneers from 192 countries, Joel and Khailee were guided, counselled, considered and voted on the One Young World resolutions. As decision makers of the future, they had plenary discussions about issues that are affecting and would eventually affect our world, such as global health, political leadership, interfaith dialogue, media, business and environment, were guided by the One Young World Counsellors.

These Counsellors include: Kofi Annan; Bob Geldof; Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Oscar Morales – the Founder of One Million Voices against FARC; Nick Haysom – the Director of Politics at the United Nations; Tony Fernandes – Founder and CEO of Air Asia; Elio Leoni-Sceti – Global CEO of EMI; Richard Sambrook – CEO of BBC Global News; Carole Stone – Managing Director of YouGovStone; Muhammad Yunus – Nobel Peace Laureate; Alejandro Toledo – Former President of Peru; Dr. Santanu Das – Founder of TranSwitch Corporation; Martin Davidson – Chief Executive of the British Council; and Harald Ludwig – co-chairman of Lions Gate Entertainment. These Counsellors are leaders of global stature who are committed to giving One Young World delegates a platform of real and global importance.

In line with what Joel and Khailee are doing in Youth Asia and the Youth Engagement Summit 2009 in Malaysia, where they organized the participation of 500 youths from South East Asia, they were selected to participate for this One Young World for their leadership potentials and engagement in social works.

Watch this space for more stuff related to Youth Asia’s involvement in ONE Young World, coming up soon.

A few meetings. Then a letter.

Our co-founder Joel Neoh was amongst one of 20 appointed to join the Majlis Perundingan Belia Negara, or the National Youth Consultative Council for 2009-2010.

“Youths from various racial and career background have been appointed to the National Youth Consultative Council,” Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek said.

The minister further said that the appointments were based on the 200 nominations made by youths. Forty candidates shortlisted were interviewed and 20 agreed to become his appointed members.

This was not a new body.

The council which had existed since 1971 was a forum for youth leaders to meet government leaders face-to-face to discuss policies, strategies, issues and approach to youth development programmes.

In 2007, the council was gazetted under the Youth Organisation and Development Act, making it a consultative body responsible for youth development.

For more information, head over to the official site.

Joel Neoh talks about his experiences in entrepreneurship

MyLDS was another activity of AIESEC in Malaysia which aims to provide an international platform for young people to explore and develop their leadership potential for them to have a positive impact in society.

This six-day workshop brought together about 500 AIESECers and young people from universities and colleges from Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and India. The delegates aspired to be leaders and change agents for their societies. Some of the featured topics which stirred their emotions and interest were about HIV/AIDS, Entrepreneurship, and Environmental Sustainability.

Our Executive Director Joel Neoh has been selected as a Supervisory Group Member of AIESEC!

On top of his (huge pile of) duties in Youth Asia, Joel now has something new on his plate: he will now oversee the overall organization and management of all AIESEC projects.

Watch this space for more exciting collaborations with AIESEC! :)

AIESEC is a global, non-political, independent and not-for-profit organization run by students and recent graduates of institutions of higher learning. Its members are interested in world issues, leadership and management. AIESEC does not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, creed, religion, national, ethnic or social origin. It is the world’s largest student organization, an international platform for young people to discover and develop their potential so as to have a positive impact in society.