In 2009, the same thing happened, but on a larger scale.
This time, the Festival took a leap up the scale. We got a larger place. Over 300 volunteers signed up to help out. Youths invited friends, who invited friends, who invited friends, and more communities, businesses, leaders and government agencies stepped in to show their support.
“We are the change that we seek.” – President Obama
In conjunction with the Youth Engagement Summit 2009, the SEAchange movement was started to connect Southeast Asian Youths to projects, organizations, businesses, and leaders who can help them achieve the change they want to see.
Along with over 120 youth organizations & communities across Southeast Asia, Youth Asia started by asking youths of Southeast Asia three simple questions.
We stand before a world of 6.7 billion of people. Competing. And collaborating for better quality of life.
And in this world, there are 200 million of us in Southeast Asia. Young. Aged 15 to 35. Energetic. Restless, and we are ready for change. A change for our jobs. Our education. Our family. Our personal habits. Our purpose. Our success. Our future.
We’re ready for a change. And we’ve decided to do something about it.
After running it for the first time, the much sought after National Youth Entrepreneur Convention returned on a larger scale on the 9th of January 2009.
We got 14 speakers under the age of 30 this time round. We even got a rapper to share his entrepreneurship story.
Most exciting note of all: HSBC, with their strong belief in youths & empowerment for youth entrepreneurship, stepped in and presented the Convention. Dutch Lady’s Shine co-sponsored the event, too.
On the 9th – 11th January 2009, over 36,720 youths gathered.
Returning for the 2nd time, YOUTH’09, Malaysia’s Largest Youth Lifestyle Festival was a massive gathering of youths with diversified interests – breakdancers, bloggers, entrepreneurs, gamers, musicians – meeting up, organizing their own get-togethers, exchanging ideas and much more.
13 speakers, from different industries. Technology. Music. Internet gaming. Blogging. Advertising. Photography.
What’s so special about them?
They were all successful entrepreneurs who’ve taken their respective industries by storm – all, under the age of 30. Some were even award winners, like the Deloitte Fast 500. Or the KLue Blue Chilli Award. One was even in the Malaysia’s Book of Records for being the youngest CEO of a public listed company at the age of 21.
Over 500 youths turned up, eager to hear the stories of successful entrepreneurship from these influential figures, whom they can call their peers.
The Convention had one vision: to empower youths by showing them that young people are capable of success.
Internet Advertising Entrepreneur Timothy Tiah (co founder of Nuffnang) during the Technopreneurship session
YOUTH’08 was Malaysia’s First Youth Lifestyle Showcase, where trendsetting youths from all walks of life gathered to participate in over 100 youth activities organized for them.
Moments before the festival started
Over 20,000 youths attended – taking part in exciting events such as Battle of the Bands, Streetdance Challenge, Blogger Party, and many more.
Imagine a festival running for 50 days, and ending up in a 50 hour event… running without a break.
Such was the Gegar U! Colours of Our Nation festival, celebrating Malaysia’s 50th Independence Day.
Organized by Yayasan Budi Penyayang, the Festival had one goal: to collect 1 million messages of national unity from young people all across Malaysia, and present the compilation to the Prime Minister at the end of the event.
We dropped by 14 different universities across the nation as well as major shopping malls. Messages and stories of unity for Malaysia poured in from everywhere – online, onground at the Unity Fest, and even via snail mail!
Walkway of creativity: Gallery of all the artwork done by youths, based on Malaysian unity. These paintings were painted using only their thumb prints, representing unity of different individuals.
We're organizing YOUTH'10 for the 3rd time on 28th to 30th May 2010 in PWTC, Kuala Lumpur.
To find out more about the exciting lineup of events, visit:
