On June 21st- 22nd, I was fortunate to have been invited to attend the first ever G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit hosted by Canadian Youth Business Foundation as Canadian representatives of an influential entrepreneurial organization, Impact Entrepreneurship Group.
CYBF has had an astounding success rate of 93% of starting businesses, with a new business starting every 14.5 hours. There were over 200 international delegates in attendance with students from all 20 participating countries in the G20 summit. Over the two days, Alex Shipillo, Impact’s National President joined by Ray Cao, Impact’s 2008 President, Vino Jeyapalan, the 2010 Impact National Conference Chair and I attended keynote sessions, exchanged ideas with the delegates, and had the opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs in this space from around the globe. The goal of the discussion points was formed into a 5 point communique that was delivered to the G20 Business Summit.
The points on the communique were:
1) Access to Funding
2) Creating an Entrepreneurial Culture
3) Coordination among Organizations
4) Education and Training
5) Taxation and Regulation
Eric Boyko, one of the most inspiring keynote speeches
A few of my favourite quotes taken from the summit include:
- “You have to be able to look past the people who will tell you that you’re going to fail”. – Wes Hall, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kingsdale Shareholder Services Inc.
- “Learn to enjoy every moment of the process. Believe in your vision, have a strong conviction, surround yourself with excellent people”. -Tara Renaud, President and Chief Executive Officer, Thermo-Trans
(who’s also a mother of 7 and with her husband as her partner in business)
- “Difference between winners & losers is the time of recovery”. – Eric Boyko, Co-founder and President, Stingray Digital
- “Entrepreneur values: Vision. Delegation. Respect shareholders. PMA – positive mental attitude. Selling”. – Eric Boyko, Co-founder and President, Stingray Digital
- Tom Jenkins compares being an entrepreneur in a fast paced organization to an ice cream cone in July. You gotta act fast.
- “Business is not something you do to make a living, it’s something you do to make a life”. – Sophia Aggelonitis, Minister of Consumer Services
The CYBF summit was an amazing experience to be part of. Canada is now on the map as one of the four founding countries of the G20 Young Entrepreneur Alilance along with Italy, Republic of Korea, and France. It was also officially announced the next summit will be taking place in Nice, France in June 2011. I’m so grateful to have been part of this experience and I had met so many amazing people with such unique stories and backgrounds. Thank you to CYBFCanada for being our gracious host!
Networking at MaRS. Can you spot me in the crowd?
If you were unable to attend, the entire event was on live stream and it appears that there will be a web archive coming soon on their website. For a transcript of the tweeting that took place, click here.
Till the next one!
Source: All pictures were taken from CYBF Canada’s photostream.