‘Road to GEC’, a kickoff to GECommunity Summit 2017 provided a sneak peek to the kind of conversations that will be taking place at the global summit come December.
‘Road to GEC’ hosted the entrepreneurship community through activities like Innovation Chats, where industry and corporate players, ecosystem influencers, policy makers, and entrepreneurs participated in personalised engagement sessions. Corporate players and industry leaders presented situations or problem statements for participants of the session to brainstorm solutions on. These problem statements and the proposed solutions would potentially be carried out in the GEC Labs during the GECommunity Summit.
Innovation Clinics were also carried out during the ‘Road to GEC’ event, where existing entrepreneurs at varying stages of their respective businesses participated with the intention of improving their existing businesses or validate their business ideas.
The theme at this year’s GECommunity Summit 2017 set to take place in December is ‘Designing the Future’, a reflection of how critical it is for the entrepreneurship ecosystem to work together in anticipating market demands and opportunity gaps in order to innovate in different sectors.
“What we want to do is basically ensure that solid ideas see the light of day. By bringing together corporate sector leaders, movers and shakers in the startup and SME space, governments and ecosystem builders to lead and participate in the GEC Labs, innovative solutions can be developed and will benefit industries as a whole,” said Ashran Datuk Ghazi, Chief Executive Officer of Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC).
The GEC Labs are the core of the GECommunity Summit – where corporate players, ecosystem players, policy makers, and entrepreneurs from around the world will convene to join in-depth discussions on key topics across 15 focus areas.
This year’s GECommunity, through GEC Labs, will explore focus areas which include Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning; E-Commerce & Retail; Fashion & Beauty; Food & Beverage; Hardware & IoT; Health & Biotech; Media, Gaming & Entertainment; Mobility & Transportation; Security & IT; Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality; Education; Social Innovation; Fintech & Payment; Creative; and Smart Cities.
The objective of GEC Labs is to explore new ideas and opportunities through conversations with players in the entrepreneurship ecosystem and ultimately use these ideas to transform and enhance industries.
According to Ashran, 50 initiatives were announced during last year’s inaugural GECommunity 2016. From the total, 13 initiatives have progressed and are in the pipeline for launch in phases.
“As with last year, we aim for the GEC Labs at this year’s summit to result in innovative and insightful ideas to be materialized through initiatives which would cumulatively generate approximately MYR100 million over the next two years. Hence, it is critical for us to be at the centre of shaping the future of the entrepreneurship community. With that said, we kick off our launch of the summit with engagement sessions between corporations and entrepreneurs,” added Ashran.
“GECommunity connects entrepreneurs, innovative thinkers, and futurists together to design the future of entrepreneurship in order to consolidate the ecosystem,” said Tan Sri Irwan Serigar Abdullah, Secretary-General of Treasury, Ministry of Finance Malaysia as well as Chairman of MaGIC and Patron of Global Entrepreneurship Movement (GEM).
According to Tan Sri Irwan, “Starting your own business can be very daunting – you have to have access to sufficient capital, you have to meet and network with the right crowd, and you have to have great mentorship programmes that can guide you as you kickstart your idea. This is precisely why a community of entrepreneurs is essential in bridging the gap between the local and global entrepreneurship community.”
Considering the rapid growth of the entrepreneurship ecosystem both locally and globally, conversations at GECommunity Summit 2017 will orbit around:-
● The current and emerging needs of developing and developed communities so that ideas are designed through intentional action and participation by the community;
● Rich insights and lessons of the global entrepreneurship community so that programmes to accelerate conversion of ideas can be built from the past for action today;
● The rapid changes in technology development, adoption, and deployment so that the GECommunity can build and sharpen a future for entrepreneurs shaped by local, regional, and global forces
The global summit is initiated by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), organized by MaGIC, and held in collaboration with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Malaysia (MOSTI) and the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (MOHE), with GEM as the community partner.