The COVID-19 pandemic has created a complex lacuna for the entrepreneurs, simultaneously propelling options for both beneficiary and sceptic prospects. The overall impact on the global economy extends to the case of young entrepreneurs as well. Standing in between the grey areas of instinctive and learned abilities, young entrepreneurs exert the conditions of enterprise qualities, innovation, creativity, calculation, and risk-taking manoeuvres. While entrepreneurship revolves around a business-oriented structure, social-entrepreneurship comes as an integral part of the entrepreneurship regime.
Young social entrepreneurs, therefore, alleviate social development, changes in infrastructure, acceleration of the education level and bring changes to the mindset of the public. To further engage in the young entrepreneurship discourse, the School of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Taylor’s University, Malaysia and the Centre for Genocide Studies, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh co-jointly organized the third Understanding Asian Transformations webinar series, with the focus of Young Entrepreneurs on 18th December, Friday.
This monthly webinar series was first launched on 17th October 2020 as an initiative to further discuss on issues and gaps and to venture into unchartered territory that concerns Malaysia and Bangladesh in particular and to extend the conversations of South and Southeast Asia in general. Unlike the previous webinars, this third webinar has a panel of esteemed discussants who discussed on the journey, challenges, and the aspirations of young entrepreneurs after the presentation of two well-regarded speakers.
The two main speakers were Dr. Mahfuz Kabir, Research Director at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Mr. Anas Zubedy (Malaysia), Adjunct Professor, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Taylor’s University, Managing Director and Founder, Zubedy (M) Sdn Bhd. and Senior Research Fellow, National Human Resource Centre, Malaysia. The esteemed panel of discussants were Ms. Nurul-Huda Mohamed Afandi, Vice President, Malaysia Youth Council, Malaysia; Mr. Saadat Chowdhury, Chairman, Zurhem, Bangladesh; Mr. Suthan M., Managing Director, BeliGas.my, The '100 Most Influential Young Entrepreneurs Award', Malaysia; Mr. Kishva Ambigapathy, Chairperson of the Commonwealth Youth Council, Malaysia; Mr. Syed Nasim Manzur, Managing Director, Apex Footwear Ltd., Bangladesh.
This event was hosted by Ms. Ainif Omar, Lecturer at Taylor’s University and moderated by Prof. Dr. Imtiaz Ahmed, Director, Centre for Genocide Studies at University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. This event was graced by the Honourable State Minister, Mr. Md. Zahid Ahsan Russel from the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Bangladesh and welcomed by Associate Professor Dr. Anindita Dasgupta, Head of School, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Taylor’s University.
Besides showcasing the role of young entrepreneurs in the changing face of Asian Transformations, this webinar was organized to contextualize entrepreneurship as part of the business and social discourses, to provide the avenue for exchanging ideas and creative inventions, to serve as a platform for understanding the networks and collaborative opportunities, to disseminate the methods of establishing an international presence, self and organizational branding, as well as service and product positioning.
This session was attended by international academics and practitioners via zoom and has a view of 2.7k on its Facebook live session. It was an insightful and inspirational session which was well received by its audience and international media.
