Against a backdrop of global budget cuts, rising unemployment, financial meltdown and a looming environmental crisis the Power of Youth is looking to harness the power and optimism of young business leaders and social entrepreneurs who have the fire and drive within them to make a difference to the world and inspire a generation.
If you want to understand how we are planning to achieve this we recommend you explore this presentation.
Accepting Responsibility
Entrepreneurs who join POY events believe business should be at the heart of building a better, more just and sustainable world. They accept today’s great global challenges with joyful responsibility, rather than seeing the challenges as a burden. They recognise their businesses should be at the forefront of this global shift to pave the new way forward – to role model how to do it – and recognise that by working together the shift might happen that bit quicker.
For more on this and to better understand the heart of POY please take the time to read our values.
How does POY help?
The Power of Youth is dedicated to supporting game-changing entrepreneurs by helping them be seen and be heard across the globe. POY attracts high level sponsors and works with partner organisations around the world to create opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors to connect, do business, learn and grow.
How does POY work? (The POY 100)
At its core, POY will be driven by an intimate community of some of the best young entrepreneurs from all over the world – POY Fellows. Fellows will work together to create and distribute the social and financial capital necessary for a more socially responsible economy. This core will be a fixed number small enough so every member will know and trust each other.
Business model
The model proposed by the community to support POY is simple and reflects our values. POY accepts a commission from any business done between our Fellows, alumni and partners to sustain its operations.
16 different countries : average age 27 : average turnover £5.4m : average number of employees 65 : industry sectors 35+ : and counting
What people are saying
“Power of Youth is something that needed to happen – I don’t think it’s late, I think it’s happened at about the right time in human development – in our generation’s development.” Boris, 31, Bulgaria, co-founder of Carbon Finance
“I can see the Power of Youth gaining the attention of the whole world, they have captured the spirit of a generation” Rao Jin, China, co‐founder of Ren Ren ‐ (China’s Facebook) CEO and Founder of April Media
“The Power of Youth is an excellent example of how young people can take initiative to promote meaningful change.” Mr Pascal Lejeune, Head of Unit, Youth in Action Programme, European Commission’s Directorate General for Education and Culture
“I used to think I was open minded, but what the Power of youth has done is taken me to a new level of awareness ‐ I see far more opportunities and challenges ahead of me, I feel I understand more, I can do more, I feel enriched. “ Dan – aged 23, Lithuania – co‐founder of “BlastMat”
Power of Youth Cape Town Summit (8th – 16th of June)
Applications are now closed for South Africa.
In June we are bringing together some of the most exciting entrepreneurs on the planet for 6 days of deep experiences and meaningful relationship building. All this is happening just outside Cape Town in Hermanus, applications for this summit are now closed.
If you are interested in future summits or further information on the media and closing event on the 16th in Cape town, please fill in the form below.
Headed up by 3 POY Fellows in Bulgaria, (Boris Hristov, Todor Gigilev and Rumen Rachkov) The POY Community now has its first example of a local Hub. This Hub will be used to promote youth entrepreneurship and the concepts behind building a better world through business on the ground in Bulgaria. It will also play a role in identifying future POY Fellows (we request that bulgarian candidates for our summits now apply though their new local site http://power-of-youth.bg/). This Hub was initiated and is being driven by members of the POY Community who are using there own time and resources to do so. It has only taken this team 4 months to establish this hub since they first engaged with POY in Beijing.
Applications now open for Power of Youth Cape Town
After our first game-changing summit in Beijing, we are delighted to announce our second summit is to be held just outside Cape Town in South Africa. It will be run from the 8th to the 16th of June and we are now accepting applications.
If you are under 35, and have proven your ability as a world class entrepreneur and have a desire to be a part of an entrepreneurial family who are dedicated to building a better world through business, then please apply.
For your benefit we recommend that youread our values before applying.
Extraordinary happenings in Beijing! The first cohort of forty POY entrepreneurs – meeting for the first time at the EU-China Youth Leaders Summit 2011 – created and signed a joint charter, committing them to create and administer an international youth investment fund, to provide start-up capital to the most promising social businesses on the planet. Three additional pledges were also made by the first POY cohort:
1) To create new cross-border business partnerships, to spark new life into the global economy
2) To foster youth entrepreneurship networks, clubs and initiatives in each of the entrepreneurs’ home countries
3) To produce and broadcast inspirational online videos to showcase the work and spread the positive message of youth entrepreneurship
As a result of the extraordinary outcomes from China the Power of Youth is dedicating itself to ensure the successful delivery of these pledges. The team is currently in planning mode, and will be re-launching POY in January 2012. Keep updated with our developments by checking this website! We would love to hear from you – please feel free to contact us by emailinginfo@power-of-youth.org.
October: at the stunning setting of the Beijing Olympic Tower, forty game-changing young business leaders and change agents from China and Europe launched POY in spectacular style, injecting an entrepreneurial buzz into the 2011 EU-China Youth Leaders Summit.
The POY delegates – from China and eleven different European countries – spent five days connecting, reflecting and learning how best they can change the world, using their collective skills, talents and resources.
The summit received high level political backing, culminating with written recommendations being submitted to the current Premier and Party secretary of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China (Premier Wen Jiabao) and the President of the European Commission (President José Manuel Barroso) as part of The Youth Leaders Statement. The POY launch at the EU-China Youth Leaders Summit was supported by the Chinese Government, the All China Youth Federation, The European Union and the European Youth Forum.
The European Commission and Chinese government have confirmed the date of the EU-China year of youth closing week. The Power of Youth have now set the dates for our inaugural summit for the 20th to the 24th of October, and welcome our candidates to be available from the 20nd of 27th of October to take part in some extra curricular fun in China’s capital.
The team at POY have begun processing the final applications and will contact all candidates shortly, watch this space…
POWER OF YOUTH CONFERENCE TO BRING TOGETHER ENTREPRENEURS FROM CHINA, EUROPEAN UNION
Cover story
By DAVID BARTRAM
A new enterprise is hoping to spark greater collaboration between young Chinese and European entrepreneurs. The Power of Youth will host a conference in Tianjin later this year in which top young entrepreneurs from all 27 EU member states will meet their Chinese counterparts to discuss everything from collaborative projects to economic policy. “The Power of Youth is about taking young people who are really good at generating financial capital, and using them to inspire others and drive collaboration which can turn their ideas into action,” says Adam Purvis, founder of the project. It is hoped that the five-day conference in Tianjin, which runs alongside an EU-China Year of Youth event which will be attended by Premier Wen Jiabao, will not only provide an environment for Europe and China’s top young entrepreneurs to discuss ideas, but also lead on to the development of new businesses. “Put young entrepreneurs in a room together and they will find opportunities and turn them into businesses. I believe European and Chinese entrepreneurs have really complementary skill sets. We are very different but it’s in these differences that we find areas we can collaborate and both grow.” Purvis hopes to take the model worldwide, with India next on the agenda in 2012. But he chose to begin with China because of his own personal experience in the country, as well as the potential he sees for collaboration between European and Chinese businesses. “I’ve worked in China before, designing cars and teaching in a university over there. I learnt that once you’ve broken down the barriers and created genuine friendships and genuine dialogue, then what we can accomplish together is so much greater than what we can accomplish individually. “We have received such a warm reception from the Chinese side. There are such obvious reasons on both sides to just open up our markets to each other. I am doing my best to hammer down all those barriers that have been put up by generations before us. I’m a great believer that individual relationships can do that.” Another European hoping to forge such relationships is Petr Hyl from the Czech Republic. Hyl already has experience in China, being chairman of the China Investment Forum, a network that supports investment between Europe and China. Previously he had founded an educational company that operated across the Czech Republic and Slovakia. “Every entrepreneur needs a network to succeed,” says Hyl. “When entering a new market an entrepreneur usually lacks access to contacts. The Power of Youth connects its members to a new and much valuable network in China and elsewhere.” On the Chinese side, one of the early supporters of the initiative is Rao Jin, a co-founder of social media website Renren. Purvis is particularly excited by the ideas that could come out of bringing together entrepreneurs like Hyl with large-scale investors in China. “We’ve had a look at the candidates the Chinese are putting up for us and they are spectacular. There are some really big names coming forward from the Chinese side. It looks like there are a couple of Chinese entrepreneurs coming forward who are billionaires.” The Power of Youth has already secured support from the European Commission, the British Council and Tianjin’s local government to turn any ideas that come out of the conference into reality. The Tianjin local government has pledged 5 square kilometers of land in the city on which to site collaborative businesses. The Commission will provide flight tickets to China for each of the 27 European entrepreneurs. In return both the Commission and Chinese government hope not only to inspire a new generation of Sino-European entrepreneurs, but also to receive feedback from top young business people on key issues affecting both the EU and China, including the energy crisis, urbanization and the repercussions of an ageing population. “We want to develop policy that will be useful to those who are at the leading edge of the economy in both China and the EU. We are going to host a problem solving session in Tianjin where people present their solutions to these problems. Eventually we hope to be presenting these findings to senior Chinese and European officials who will be writing policy.” The results of the conference will also be distilled in a series of short videos and online presentations, creating a resource for other young people who want to turn their ideas into businesses. “What we’re also going to do is take their business acumen, the know-how of making businesses work, and we’re going to crunch that into two minute infographics aimed at the attention deficit generation. Young people want this information quickly,” says Purvis. With the application process for entrepreneurs ongoing, Purvis is keen to stress that the door is still open for successful business people to get involved with the Power of Youth. “I’m of the opinion that if you buy into our network, we can improve a global economy that is hideously inefficient. It can be far more dynamic and far more socially conscious. Power of Youth alumni — from Europe, China and across the world — will generally believe we can make the world a better place if we are more socially conscious.” Making a difference Adam Purvis, founder of the Power of Youth, which will hold a five-day conference in Tianjin later this year, providing a platform for Chinese and European young entrepreneurs to discuss ideas.
The Chinese version of the Power of Youth website went live last week. Hosted on the 4th Media website which receives over 5 million hits per day the website has already seen a massive amount of traffic from the Chinese community. The website is now working as a powerful tool to raise the profile of our inaugural summit and to attract more of China’s best young entrepreneurs to our program.
In this inspiring short film James Martin, one of the worlds most respected futurologists, outlines the significance of the responsibilities that rest on our generation and expresses how he believes that now is the most exciting time in human history to be young.
‘Your lifetime is going to be incredible, its going to be the most exciting time to be alive. I cant think of any other time when a young person could make more difference, humanity is on a journey to something far beyond anything we can even comprehend today’.
“Power of Youth” will gather 54 young entrepreneurs – aged under 45 years old, together in Beijing this November for the inaugural “Power of Youth” Summit where they will have the chance to explore innovative ways to build and expand entrepreneurial businesses
27 successful European young entrepreneurs, one from each EU member state, will meet 27 of China’s most powerful entrepreneurs, including the billionaire founder of Renren (China’s answer to Facebook), at a 5 days Summit in China organised by “Power of Youth”.
At the start of 2011 a team of internationally focused leaders and entrepreneurs came together in both Brussels and Beijing to look at ways of inspiring a younger generation of successful entrepreneurs to take their enterprises global. This was part of the EU – China year of Youth and it was attended by China’s Premier Wen Jiabao.
“Power of Youth” (POY) was a major result of these events, and now a Summit of the best young entrepreneurs in Europe and China will take place in China in the autumn of 2011.
With the support of the European Commission (EC), the British Council and Tianjin local government in China (which gifted a valuable portion of land to the delegates in order to encourage the creation of new businesses in the area), “Power of Youth” will gather 54 young entrepreneurs – aged under 45 years old, together in Beijing this November for the inaugural “Power of Youth” Summit where they will have the chance to explore innovative ways to build and expand entrepreneurial businesses.
The event will provide a space where all participants can explore innovative ways of generating social and environmental capital from financially dynamic models and turn these into inspiring businesses. Additionally, the event will focus on taking these entrepreneurs existing businesses to global markets, as the European and Chinese political elite, industry leaders, top investors and policy makers are expected to attend and meet the next generation of successful entrepreneurs.
The “Power of Youth” has a strong business model and its member’s aim is to roll-out the programme, reinvesting in youth focused initiatives and expanding the initiative into India, the US and Brazil over the next four years.
Candidates
The members of POY have already launched their search for 27 equally interesting young entrepreneurs from the EU, aiming to get one entrepreneur from each EU member country. The primary criteria is for the candidate to be under 45 years old and able to prove him/herself as a successful business person with a track record of generating significant financial capital from entrepreneurial activity. On top of this track record of achievement, organisers are looking for people to show integrity and ambition to help others succeed.
The deadline for all applications is 31st August. In September the board of advisers will meet and select one candidate from each of the 27 European member states that will be matched with a further 27 from China.
If you would like to nominate yourself or someone you know then please refer to POY’s website: www.power-of-youth.org
About Adam Purvis – “Power of Youth” Founder & Director
A One Young World ambassador and entrepreneurial graduate Adam’s view is that there needs to be a greater international focus on young people, entrepreneurship and a bridging of relations between the East and West. He has created POY to give the next generation of entrepreneurs the chance to encourage a more sustainable global economy. Previously Adam led the Young Icebreakers in Scotland and delivered two high profile events with young leaders from China and the UK. Adam is a Head of Business Development at Ignite Your Brand and a Board Member at Ricefield Chinese Arts and Culture Center. He is the Edinburgh Napier University, young Alumnus of the year for his China work to date.
Sponsorship Opportunities
The organisers are currently exploring additional sponsorship opportunities. To that effort, they are approaching enterprises throughout China and Europe that have an interest in raising their profile in international markets and like to take the opportunity to work with the next big names in business.
For more information you may contact: gurjit@power-of-youth.org or tel: 0044 7888953332
Chinese media partner achieving 5 million hits per day
A media partner to the Power of Youth in China ‘The 4th Media’ is receiving over 5 million hits per day on its main website where the story of the Power of Youth is soon to be announced. More importantly their target demographic are the educated and entrepreneurial youth of China. This is expected to help the Power of Youth and our Chinese partners attract the best possible candidates from China for the summit in October. It will also significantly raise the profile of our sponsors to the fastest growing consumer group on the planet. Rao Jin CEO of The 4th Media and early founder of Renren (China’s Facebook) has been a key supporter of the Power of Youth since its first arrival in China in March during the opening of the EU China year of youth.
TED:Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China
Really interesting ideas from Martin Jacques speaking at a TED Salon in London, economist Jacques asks: How do we in the West make sense of China and its phenomenal rise? The author of “When China Rules the World,” he examines why the West often puzzles over the growing power of the Chinese economy, and offers three building blocks for understanding what China is and will become. (TED.com)
The views and opinions in this video are not necessarily those of the Power of Youth.
We are seeking funding to support the growth of our enterprise.
The Power of Youth (POY) is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee incorporated at the start of 2011. It aims to facilitate the creation of new businesses and partnerships between young entrepreneurs from different countries worldwide. It has 6 main objectives:
To represent and promote the top young international entrepreneurs worldwide.
To promote the best practice of the long term financial sustainability for the next generation of enterprises.
To provide an exclusive online platform to promote the POY network and its application of entrepreneurial principles and collaboration as drivers for sustainability.
To embed the concept of social and environmental innovation within the next generation of business leaders.
To use the profile and expertise of POY alumni to engage with youth organizations.
To develop valuable ways for our sponsors to engage and network with some of the worlds best young entrepreneurs (your next generation of customers).
The forecast business model will see the Power of Youth become self sustaining within 3 years. From that point onward we will start to generate a significant financial surplus. From here we will begin reinvesting into youth focused initiatives that further encourage cross-border collaboration and the application of entrepreneurial principles to new exciting enterprises. This is all reliant on funding we need to secure between now and early 2013. However if we succeed, by the end of our fourth year 540 young entrepreneurs would have been through our programs operating between the EU and China, India, the US and one further location. The estimated primary quantifiable outputs of these summits have been forecasted at:
80 significant joint ventures and start-ups with a collective turnover of £235m
New employment for 9940 people
At least 30% of these enterprises will be social businesses with a double and/or triple bottomline
The funds to run the Power of Youth inaugural summit in China have now been secured. A combined effort from the European Commission and the Chinese Government has made it possible for the Power of Youth to bring together 54 of Europe’s and China’s best young Entrepreneurs for between 5-10 days of high level international business development. The summit which is scheduled for late October will see our entrepreneurs work alongside sector representatives from European and Chinese businesses. It will be an educative and highly participative process to give them maximum chance of growing their own business into international markets and starting new innovative cross boarder joint ventures. The events will be designed and managed according to best practice in new business leadership led by the POY board of directors that have extensive experience in delivering cutting edge result-orientated international summits.
On 19 May, a one-day forum was organised in Brussels with a focus on youth entrepreneurship. Over 200 participants from the EU and China attended this event. Lu Hao first Secretary of The All China Youth Federation opened the event which was hailed as a great success.
The EU-China Forum on Youth Entrepreneurship is intended to offer a space to youth representatives from the EU and China to explore and share concrete practices, experiences and challenges around the following topics: entrepreneurship education, promoting the development of entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, facilitating youth entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship. By sharing practices in these areas, the event aimed at comparing situations, identifying inspiring practices from both sides and encouraging the development of a better understanding of respective realities and challenges for young people in the EU and China.
Session 2 was moderated by the founder of the Power of Youth, Adam Purvis.
This session focused on turning ideas into action: youth entrepreneurial skills in practice and approaches to facilitate youth entrepreneurship. This session focused on concrete examples of how youth entrepreneurial spirit and skills can lead to successful innovative initiatives by young people and the transferability of experiences between the EU and China and how such experiences are linked to EU-China cooperation.
The panelists included:
Chen Zong, Chairman of Rural Youth Brokers Group, China Rural Youth Entrepreneurship Association,
Petr Hyl, Executive Chairman, China Investment Forum,
Caroline Jenner, CEO, Junior Achievement Young Enterprise Europe (JA-YE),
Li Yuqi, President, Shaanxi Provincial Youth Federation,
Marta Paoletti, Founder of Mazetas, Awardee of the European Prize “For youth employment in the Social Economy” of the European Network of Foundations for Social Economy,
& Yang Yingling, Deputy Section Chief of Department of Employment Promotion, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security,
Also attending was Viorel Isticioaia Budura, Managing Director Asia and Pacific, European External Action Service,
Androulla Vassiliou, Member of the European Commission responsible for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth,
Lu Hao, First Secretary, Chinese Communist Youth League and Chairman of the China Organizing Committee of the EU-China Year of Youth,
& Marko Curavić, Head of Unit, Entrepreneurship, European Commission’s Directorate General Enterprise and Industry
After a week of talks in Beijing conducted by Jed Pon, China Director of the Power of Youth, The China Guanghua Foundation has partnered up with the enterprise to run the inaugural summit in October and head hunt Chinas first 27 entrepreneurs.
The foundation is a nationwide charitable foundation registered at Ministry of Civil Affairs and directly subordinate to The Central Committee of the Communist Youth League.
Founded in 1993, by establishing “Guanghua Science and Technology Reward” and “Guanghua Youth Innovation Reward”, the Foundation has made an unique and conspicuous contribution to the nation’s science and technology development and therefore gaining a broad social acclaim. In 2010, Guanghua foundation ranks the first in Forbes China’s top ten charitable foundations. “International Youth Leaders Exchange Project” is an international exchange project newly initiated by China Guanghua Foundation for Chinese youth leaders. This project has received a sincere support from Chinese government and many domestic prestigious companies, and has set its own direction on cultivating youth leaders with global horizon and international cooperation ability.
JA-YE Europe has partnered up with the Power of Youth to help establish its strategy for headhunting Europe’s best young Entrepreneurs. As well as being Europe’s largest provider of entrepreneurship education programs, reaching 3.1 million students in 38 countries in 2010, JA-YE Europe runs an annual competition to award the best established young entrepreneurs in Europe. It is from this pool of over 127 alumni that the Power of Youth will begin the search for its european candidates.
The Power of Youth is also in similar discussions with The European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs(YES), which is the major association of young entrepreneurs throughout Europe representing 40.000 members.
All China Youth Federation and European Commission pledge support
During a gala dinner event of the EU China year of youth in China, Power of Youth and an arm of the All China Youth Federation signed an MOU pledging to work closer together and create more opportunities for Europe and China’s young entrepreneurs to collaborate and take their enterprises to global markets.
This event was the last before the opening ceremony of the EU-China Year of Youth in Beijing. The week leading up to the opening ceremony saw 100 young ambassadors from the EU tour China and engage in talks with young leaders from across the country.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attended the opening ceremony of the EU-China Year of Youth in Beijing in February, encouraging young people from China and the EU to build a brighter future for bilateral strategic partnerships.Joining over 500 young people from China and the EU in the Capital Museum in downtown Beijing, Wen Jiabao said that the year-long youth exchange campaign was the first theme year between China and the EU since the establishment of diplomatic ties, and is also the largest-ever China-EU cultural exchange program.
A video speech from European Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso was aired at the ceremony. He said that the Year of Youth offers an interactive platform for European and Chinese young people to enhance mutual understanding and friendship and also inject vitality to China-EU relations.
The British Council have provided seed funding to the Power of Youth. During the successful launch of the 2011 EU-China Year of Youth on 11 January in Brussels, the concept for the Power of Youth was created in an open dialogue session with over 200 young people from all over the EU and China. They were tackling the issue of sustaining the many cultural and charitable initiatives that are being run between the youth of the EU and China. The idea came together to establish an organisation that harnessed the power of young entrepreneurs to create the financial and intellectual capital that will help these and other innovate programs sustain themselves. On returning to the UK the organisers of the Power of Youth approached the British Council and were awarded funding to establish the enterprise and prepare it to make the most of the up and coming 5 day opening ceremony in China in March.
The 2011 EU-China Year of Youth was officially launched at the European commission in Brussels by Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth and , Wang Xiao President of the All-China Youth Federation, in the presence of Miklós Soltész, Hungarian Minister of State responsible for Social, Family and Youth Affairs, and Ambassador Song Zhe, Head of the Mission of China to the EU.
From the 10th to the 12th of January the opening ceremony of the EU-China Year of Youthwas held in Brussels.
During the event the youth representative from the UK, Adam Purvis engaged the summit with the issue of the sustainability of the softer programs launched during the year, and the responsibly that lay with the youth. These discussions have lead to the creation of the Power of Youth, based on the UK China 400 programs run between the Young Icebreakers in Scotland and the British Council.
These programs were designed to bring young leaders together and were further developed by Adam Purvis during his convernership the Young Icebreakers in Scotland to have a focus on joint ventures and Entrepreneurship. The Idea for the EU CHINA Young Entrepreneur program (Power of Youth) was developed during the initial debates at the launch ceremony of the EU China Year of Youth.
This program is striving to bring together the best young proven entrepreneurs from the EU and China to develop innovative social business enterprises and joint ventures. Their prime focus will be to inspire and financially sustain other softer programs developed by the youth of the EU and China that has a focus on cross boarder collaboration.
From the 21st to 28th of February Adam is headed to Beijing to represent Europe and co-chair the summit on Youth Entrepreneurship and Creativity at the reciprocal launch of the EU-China Year of Youth. During the event, the official launch of the Power of Youth has been planned and will very likely be in the presence of Premier Wen who is due to visit over the 7 days.
The One Young World Inaugural Summit was held in London on February 8 to 10, 2010 and drew 823 young leaders from 112 countries. It has become recognised since as the premier global forum for young people of leadership calibre. It manifests the reality of common humanity and the shared existence of all the peoples in one world, Its purpose is to connect and bring together the youngest, brightest and best and to ensure that their concerns, opinions and solutions are heard. The founder of the Power of Youth was one of the delegates to attend this event and represent the UK and it was connections and ideas that came together at this event, that has ultimately led to the creation of this enterprise.
The Second Annual One Young World Summit will be held in Zurich, Switzerland on 1st – 4th September 2011. Already signed up are a number of distinguished Counsellors including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bob Geldof and Muhammad Yunus who were all instrumental in the inaugural event. These world figures will be working to promote the event and other high profile counsellors including Mo Ibrahim and Fatima Bhutto. The founder of the Power of Youth will be returning to this event as an ambassador to promote the work been done by the next generation of entrepreneurs from the Power of Youth.
Visit the new .cn Power of Youth website
