WINDHOEK- Over a 100 youth representatives and youth delegates attended a Business Forum on Saturday.
The Forum invited inputs on the role of young people in creating their own job opportunities, why youth entrepreneurship matters, youth taking ownership of vision 2030 and whether through entrepreneurship the youth can solve socio-economic and environmental challenges and much more. The Forum under the theme: Youth Entrepreneurship, Solution to unemployment, featured guest speakers, activities and a panel discussion and a questions and answers session as well as brainstorming sessions with panellists and delegates sharing their personal experiences in entrepreneurship providing the youthful delegates with an opportunity to voice their opinions, share ideas and think about the way forward in youth entrepreneurship.
One of the important points raised is the fact that many youths have brilliant ideas and desire to implement them but taking the first step, involving the right people and funding always seem to be a challenge. The Forum also addressed the art of influencing people to understand one’s idea, developing software solutions in Namibia to create employment and the importance of collaboration in business. Taleni Shimhopileni, spoke about Namibians moving from being complainants to being solutions and beginning to look at things differently. One of the panellists, Founder and Managing Director of Namibia Industrial Group and Go Safe, Regto Ndemufayo David, emphaisese the importance of mentorship in entrepreneurship as well as the need to study the challenges of other entrepreneurs. He also highlighted the importance of profiling entrepreneurs in school texts books so children can know about their own leaders at a young age.
Panellist, Daisry Mathias, Team Namibia’s Chief Executive Officer pointed out that whether one is an Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) or head of one’s organisation, one needs to influence people to get support but before that one needs to earn people’s trust. She says trust is one of the important ways in getting people to support your business idea.
Another panellist, Michael Amushelelo, the Founder and Executive Chairman of Amushe Inc, says when starting a business, one needs to persevere, entice people and their league and play well with it. He adds saying business is a jungle, “if your project is that good, you just have to keep pushing and the right people will come to you”.
The event was organised by AIESEC is an international non-governmental not-for-profit organiSation that provides young people with leadership development and cross-cultural global internship and volunteer exchange experiences across the globe with a focus on empower young people so that they can make a positive impact on society.