By Charkhris Phomyoth (Gap), CEO and Co-Founder, YoungHappy (Thailand) In Thailand’s urban centres, I kept meeting older people who felt unseen. Many are part of the “missing middle”. They are not poor enough for government welfare, but not wealthy enough for private care. Too often, they are treated as passive and vulnerable, when they still want to learn, connect and contribute. That is why we started YoungHappy. My mission has stayed consistent: to help older people feel c

By Mashrur H. Shurid, Founder, Aunkur AI (Bangladesh) Small farmers are often excluded from finance for a simple reason. The system cannot “see” them. When a lender cannot verify soil health, input use, or production risk, it defaults to caution. I founded Aunkur to help change that by turning farm realities into evidence that farmers and institutions can act on. I started Aunkur AI (formerly known as IPAGE) in 2018 with a clear mission. We help small farmers to grow more wit

By Engr. Maira Shaikh Qureshi, Founder of MJ EcoSpin Innovations (Pakistan) Before I joined the Movers Programme, I had passion. I cared deeply about sustainability and youth development. But caring about something and having the confidence to act on it are two very different things. I was not comfortable speaking in public. Facilitation felt out of reach. I had ideas, but I did not yet have the voice to go with them. A Movers workshop changed that. It was not just a traini

Abdul Shakoor, Curve Up (Sri Lanka) For marginalized youth in the Asia-Pacific, the leap from local survival to regional growth is now a systemic shift towards transnational market exposure. Integrating AI-powered tools with cross-border connectivity is redefining how resilience is built for young entrepreneurs who have historically been excluded from global value chains. The most significant shift over the last decade has been the transition from isolated, siloed support

Mélanie Mossard, Impact Hub Asia Pacific Regional Board I work for an Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESO), and if I had to choose one metaphor to describe that work, it would be this: gardener. Let me guide you through my observations, gathered over the past 11 years working in the Asia Pacific region, especially Cambodia, supporting the next generation of impact makers. Flashback to ten years ago, youth entrepreneurship ecosystems across much of Asia-Pacific were barel

By Kelvin Sergeant, Senior Sustainable Enterprise Development and Job Creation Specialist, East and South-East Asia and the Pacific, International Labour Organization The global landscape is entering a period of sustained volatility. Geopolitical fragmentation, macroeconomic instability, climate shocks, and labour market disruptions are no longer isolated risks. They are overlapping forces reshaping how economies function and how opportunities are distributed. The impact is n

By Jonathan Wong and Elena Mayer-Besting Asia and the Pacific boasts millions of small businesses. Yet, too few go on to reach scale and transform our economies. How do we change that? What does it take to build successful businesses and thriving entrepreneurship ecosystems? We often point to familiar ingredients: talent, scalable ideas, venture capital, entrepreneurial culture, and “ease of doing business”. These are necessary. Yet even where they exist, only a fraction of i

By Pahrada Sapprasert (Mameaw), Partner, 500 TukTuks and Managing Partner, Orzon Ventures (Thailand) Capital is more than abundant in Southeast Asia, yet for the majority of young entrepreneurs across the region, the path from idea to first investment often remains inaccessible. The financing ecosystem has grown, but it has not grown equitably, and that gap is the defining system challenge of the next decade. What Has Changed Ten years ago, the conversation about financing yo

By Elliot Harris, Head of International Community Relations, Citi In 2014, when the Citi Foundation launched the Pathways to Progress, a global effort to equip young people with the skills and networks to succeed in the rapidly changing economy, we quickly learned that a powerful intervention was not just preparing youth for jobs, but enabling youth to create them. That insight became the catalyst for our broader journey, which ultimately incubated the launch of Youth Co:Lab

By Dr. Elsie Tsui, Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Management, CUHK Business School, The Chinese University of Hong Kong SAR. Across the globe, governments are racing to harness artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technology. Singapore's National AI Strategy 2.0 committed over S$1 billion in late 2023, with a further S$1 billion under its National AI Research and Development (NAIRD) Plan in January 2026; the EU AI Act entered into force in August 2024 as the w

By Dr. Ulrike Guelich, Assistant Professor, Bangkok University School of Entrepreneurship and Management, and Research Team Leader, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Thailand We cannot improve what we do not measure, but measurement is never neutral. For rural and informal youth entrepreneurs across Asia-Pacific, visibility can be as risky as it is enabling. After a decade of ecosystem building, we have more data than ever on youth entrepreneurship. Yet our diagnostics re

By Faiz Shah, President, Yunus Thailand Foundation and Executive Director, Yunus Center, Asian Institute of Technology Youth Co:Lab’s 10th anniversary is a reminder of the financial inclusion dilemma that catalyzed its vision. For the region’s 1.2 billion young people, access to business finance remains a huge challenge. The past decade has been transformational, with seamless digital ecosystems more accessible than ever. Yet, financial inclusion remains a challenge for young

Reflections on coordination, partnerships, and impact Author: Fai Wechayachai Why Ecosystem-Building Still Matters Youth entrepreneurship in Asia and the Pacific has moved into the mainstream over the past decade. The vocabulary, the funding, and the policy attention have all expanded. However, the opportunity is not equitably available for all young people. The same country can produce radically different odds for two young people growing up at the same time. Privilege conce

Youth Co:Lab alumna Sanjida Alam, Founder of Soowgood, is on a mission to bridge the healthcare divide in Bangladesh. Sanjida’s inspiration for Soowgood stems from her own deeply personal experience. When she was a baby, her family had to take her to India for treatment due to the lack of quality medical care in Bangladesh. Years later, she witnessed the heartbreaking loss of her cousin’s three-year-old baby—born with the same heart condition she once had—because of inadequa

Youth Co:Lab alumna Tanvi Ravindra Thombre, Founder of Greenairy, a Singapore-based social enterprise, shares her reflections on the Summit.

By Youth Co:lab alumna Intan Rahmaningtyas, Co-Founder of Lestari Jamuku, Indonesia I, recently, had the honour of delivering the opening...

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) hosted its second edition of the Feminist Finance...

Youth Co:Lab alumni and Managing Director of SpedGrow, Zoe Poh, was among the panellists at the 'Moving Together: 2023 Youth Leadership...

During the 9th IPU Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians on 14-17 September 2023 in Ha Noi, Viet Nam, Beniam Gebrezghi, the...

This is what we ask ourselves every day, in our meetings, in our programme design, and in all our engagement with young social...