GenU partners gather to boost youth entrepreneurship
On 9 December, GenU gathered some of the most prominent actors in the field of entrepreneurship to identify synergies and amplify promising entrepreneurship initiatives for youth.
On the 9th of December, Generation Unlimited, together with the Co-chairs of GenU’s Workstream on Boosting Entrepreneurial Skills and Opportunities rallied together strategic partners and important stakeholders around one ambitious goal - to support every young person to have access to a decent livelihood – anywhere, anytime.
Ravi Vekatesan, UNICEF’s Special Representative for Young People and Innovation and Founder of GAME – the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship and Per Heggenes, GenU Board of Trustees Member and CEO of IKEA Foundation are chairing the entrepreneurship workstream, a strategic priority area of GenU which aims at building sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems and scaling-up world-class entrepreneurship solutions that meet young people’s unique contexts and levels of ability.
The Virtual Co-creation Workshop gathered some of the most prominent actors in the field to share a common understanding of the vision and overall strategy for Workstream 3, agree on common priorities and commitment levels around youth entrepreneurship and accelerate development and delivery of impactful youth entrepreneurship programs. The workshop started with welcoming remarks from GenU Director, Roberto Benes, followed by co-chairs’ introduction of the vision and strategic direction of GenU’s workstream on boosting entrepreneurial skills and opportunities. Participants then had the chance to hear about Scale-upÒEcosystems, the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship, and Educate! and then delve into group work and identify gaps, funding priorities, and interlinkages.
The workshop was attended by thought leaders and entrepreneurship funding organizations such as IKEA Foundation, WEF, MasterCard, Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, World Bank, Wadhwani Foundation, Co-Impact, ADB, Delta Philanthropies, Higher Life Foundation, Ferd Social Entrepreneurs, and Tony Elumelu Foundation but also by technical experts and field practitioners from GAME, Educate!, Aflatoun, Goodwall, and Africa Digital Media Foundation and Institute. As our co-chair Per Heggenes highlighted “This workshop served as a marketplace for collaboration opportunities in the field of youth entrepreneurship.” Together, with a highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic group of entrepreneurship trailblazers, Generation Unlimited is accelerating its workplan implementation to focus on helping every young person develop an entrepreneurial mindset and on building sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems in priority countries. In fact, as our co-chair Ravi Venkatesan mentioned “We’re absolutely convinced that youth entrepreneurship has to be amongst our critical priorities as GenU – at the core of the mission of this workstream we have not only entrepreneurship skills and mindsets for young people, but also entrepreneurial outcomes”.
As a multi-sector partnership platform, Generation Unlimited is incredibly happy and proud to follow up on the next steps of this meeting and continue coordinating and supporting the alignment and synergy of promising entrepreneurial endeavors as a pathway to success and a prosperous future for young people globally!