Smart Future, Global Shapers and IIT to mark GEW 2015 with entrepreneurship forum

As over 160 countries mark Global Entrepreneurship Week 2015, budding Sri Lankan job creators will come together to discuss what it takes to be an entrepreneur at a forum this week. Organised by Smart Future and the Global Shapers Colombo Hub, the event titled ‘Entrepreneurship Is In: But What Does It Take?’ will be held at Informatics Institute of Technology today (19) at 4 p.m. 

Speakers will include Romeo Effs – CEO of Aspyre Group and international business coach, Nayana Samaranayake – founder of WorkInSriLanka and Storylize and former Google Software Engineer, and Amrit Rupasinghe – co-founder of Buzzbird – a new mobile app startup. 

Effs, who will connect from London via Skype, will talk about ‘The Entrepreneur Mindset & How to Create ‘Amazing’,’ while Nayana and Amrit will talk about the inspiration and perseverance in their own entrepreneurship journeys.

The speaker session will be followed by a screening of the hit movie ‘Crocodile in the Yangtze: The Alibaba Story’, which won ‘Best Film on Innovation and Entrepreneurship’ at the Silicon Valley Film Festival. The movie, which chronicles the rise of Jack Ma and his Chinese e-commerce sensation, is being shown under special arrangement with Endeavor Turkey to mark Global Entrepreneurship Week.

GEW is an annual global celebration of the innovators and job creators who launch startups that bring ideas to life, drive economic growth and expand human welfare. During one week each November, GEW inspires people everywhere through local, national and global activities designed to help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators. 

Announcing the event, Founder of Smart Future and economist Anushka Wijesinha stated: “Entrepreneurship must be the new agenda for Sri Lanka. We are already seeing a budding eco-system of new startups emerge. This must permeate through the whole country if we are to truly see inclusive growth. More and more young people are keen to start their own ventures, and businesses and government must come together to support this.”

The Colombo Hub of the Global Shapers Community and Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT) are partnering to host this event. Hiran Wickramasinghe, member of the Hub and Managing Director of Informatics Holdings, added: “IIT is proud to partner on this as entrepreneurship skills are key for the development of young talent who are going into the industry. Young entrepreneurs must be geared to handle the challenges of entrepreneurship – leadership, success, obstacles and failure – and not give up. At the Global Shapers Colombo Hub, we want to encourage these traits in the younger generation.”

Participants at the Sri Lankan event will join the roughly 10 million people around the world taking part in this eighth annual celebration; recognising and supporting entrepreneurs from around the world. To register, visit the Facebook pages of ‘Smart Future Forum’ or ‘Global Shapers Colombo Hub’, email [email protected] or send a text to 0777732686.