At this event, hundreds of delegates from 16 countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region met for four days (from April 2 to April 4, 2019) in National Economics University in the framework of the 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference of Youth Social Entrepreneurship (Youth Co: Lab) organized by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Citi Foundation coordinating with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam.
Attending at the conference, there were Mr. Tran Van Tung - Deputy Minister of Science and Technology; Ms. Valerie Cliff - Deputy Director, UNDP Asia-Pacific region; Ms. Caitlin Wiesen - acting Resident Representative, UNDP Vietnam; Ms. Brandee McHale - President of Citi Foundation; and delegates, distinguished guests from 16 countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region. On the side of the National Economics University, there were Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Cuong - NEU Vice President; Prof. Dr. Truong Thi Nam Thang - Director of CSIE Social Initiation and Start-up Center.
Speaking at the Opening Ceremony, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Cuong - NEU Vice President welcomed the delegates, distinguished guests who attended at the event. . Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Cuong said: ‘The conference has created an open space for policy makers, entrepreneurs and start-up community to share issues about youth, creative start-up and cooperation, social activities as well as vision, experience and solutions to promote the development of national creative entrepreneurship ecosystem’. In particular, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Cuong emphasized the role of the university in promoting social entrepreneurship for the sake of sustainable development, in which the Center for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship - NEU must be an effective "arm" to help the university achieve this goal.
At the conference, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology - Mr. Tran Van Tung emphasized that: “In the context of global integration and development today, entrepreneurship and innovation play an important role in economic development and solving difficulties. and global challenges as well as achieving sustainable development in each country and worldwide. (Youth Co: Lab) 2019 is an important event for creative start-up communities in general and businesses for social purposes in particular. The conference will allow exchange of ideas and help to further develop startups, through incubation, innovation, expanding connectivity and international cooperation”.
The Deputy Minister added: “In recent years, the Government of Vietnam has shown a special interest in the activities of starting a creative business in Vietnam in general and starting a business to solve social problems in particular (aka Impact Startup). Impact Startup has become one of the main themes of the 2018 National Innovation Start-Up Day (Techfest VietNam 2018) chaired by the Ministry of Science and Technology. This is also the largest annual event about entrepreneurship innovation in Vietnam”
Ms. Valerie Cliff - UNDP Deputy Director for Asia-Pacific affirmed that “Young people really hold the key to social change. This is how we reaffirm our courage and the determination of young people who dare to change to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Our mission at (Youth Co: Lab) is uniting all in a common ecosystem connecting youth with governments and businesses to scale up the impact of the project".
On the side of UNDP representatives in Vietnam, Caitlin Wiesen also shared that social entrepreneurs and innovative young entrepreneurs had an important role in achieving sustainable development goals, hence, giving them support was the right direction.
The President of Citi Foundation, Brandee McHale, also said that (Youth Co: Lab) ‘s approach is to listen to young people's views and ideas and improve their capacity to implement business solutions. to solve the most pressing problems in the world today. Brandee McHale stressed, "only by combining multiple partners from both the public and private sectors, social groups, civil society and many other units, we can accomplish the goal of sustainable Development".
Also within the framework of the Asia-Pacific Conference of Youth Social Entrepreneurship 2019, National Economics University organized a booth to introduce results and support for creative social entrepreneurship, 2 intensive discussion sessions, including roundtable discussions between leading countries in granting the right to start creative youth society "Youth Empowerment Roundtable", on the afternoon of April 3 and the conference to share the results of the National Report "Strengthening the promotion of the Vietnamese social impact enterprise sector" in the afternoon of April 4.
Attending at the conference were representatives of the Government, UNDP UNDP staff and researchers from 8 countries (Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Mongolia, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Island and Samoa).
At the seminar, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Truong Thi Nam Thang - Director of CSIE Social Innovation and Start-up Center shared with the guests about the situation of social creativity and social enterprises in Vietnam in term of definitions, provisions of law, reputable organizations on this new type of business. In addition, she also introduced how to help academic institutions can strongly promote the start of social creativity in Vietnam CSIE, proved by the journey of the 2-year formation and the proud development process of CSIE Center for Social Innovation and Start-up. The center aims for training, research and incubation activities for entrepreneurship and social creativity idea
In the content of the seminar, delegates exchanged around topics on how to promote social entrepreneurship in young people, what role academic institutions can play in promoting the image into an ecosystem of creative social entrepreneurship; what support the government should provide to help its national projects to contribute to the development of its own country.
A highlight point of the seminar was the sharing of the business model (Green business) currently being implemented in Nepal. Also, infrastructure barriers, travel conditions in small-scale island nations and small populations such as Fiji and Solomon Island have also become topics of discussion.
The conference ended with the Social Innovation Challenge Program throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Accordingly, 34 previously selected teams in social innovation challenge competitions in 16 countries and territories will take turns to present, introduce social enterprises and their ideas to a society. prestigious co-judges.
The conference (Youth Co: Lab) 2019 has gathered many speakers who are famous entrepreneurs, pioneering young people, leaders of agencies and leading partners in entrepreneurship ecosystems. In the framework of the opening day, young people had very practical and interesting activities such as: participating in (Youth Co: Lab) Design contest, building booths to introduce products ..