When I was approached to design and curate this program throughout the ASEAN region, I leapt at the opportunity to utilise my experience working across Asia and my design and social enterprise skills to curate a series that could make a meaningful impact to our near neighbours. The series was also designed to cover topics that meant a lot to Australia, and myself –

how can we empower youth across the region, and provide connections and collaborations through themes such as social enterprise and social impact?

Over the next 18 months, we’ll be running workshops, events, Q&A’s, panels, official receptions and other engagements across Southeast Asian nations under the understanding that youth in Australia and the Southeast Asian region are pioneering some of our greatest innovations and creativity.

For Australian social entrepreneurs, the ASEAN region is a particularly exciting place to be. Did you know that Indonesia’s Youth Enterprise Council has 6 million youth members? Or that 60 per cent of the world’s youth population reside in the Asia Pacific? If you’ve been following along at home,

213 million youth reside in the ASEAN region alone – meaning that there are tonnes of opportunities, but also challenges, that come with such a highly enterprising and young population.

When we were asked to curate the Youth Entrepreneurs & Leaders Speaker Series, Laos was one of the first countries we were asked to work with. Last weekend, we had the opportunity to kick off the very first events, sending over the incredible Dr Cameron Cliff, an inspiring and go-getting 27-year old artificial intelligence and tech expert who also happens to be the Manager of Social Impact for successful Brisbane tech start-up GO1. If you missed it, GO1 is the brainchild of a series of young Brisbane entrepreneurs (some of whom have been deeply involved in the social enterprise scene), who recently received $30 million of funding in its Series B round of funding, just months after raising $10 million in its Series A funding round.