‘Explore’ - a Business and Entrepreneurship Forum

Described by one participant as ‘A programme that gave hope’ – ‘Explore’ A Business and Entrepreneurship Forum saw over a 125 young people from across the island come together, to discuss and understand a variety of issues pertaining to entrepreneurship as well as future job prospects within NGOs.

The main focus of the September 23 forum in Colombo was to encourage and challenge individuals to consider entrepreneurship as a viable future career and to convey the importance of certain skills entrepreneurs need to cultivate as well as methods by which a competitive advantage can be sought in order to make one’s business venture a success, the organisers said in a statement.

The forum saw many well known personalities such as Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya (CEO, Dialog GSM), Jeevan Thiagarajah (Executive Director, Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies), Mohommed Adamally (Attorney at Law) and Shantha Kurumbalapitiya (CEO, T & S Buttons Lanka Private Ltd – a subsidiary of Brandix) grace the occasion as speakers addressing a variety of topics and sharing personal experiences which both inspired those present to strive to achieve their goals as well as gave them an understanding of what the driving forces in business are and the environment in which they operate. Competitions were organised in order to introduce certain business concepts and motivate. A ‘Business Innovations’ Competition where competitors presented their new business ideas was won by Lalin Mendis while the Marketing Plan Competition where contestants were required to compile a Marketing Plan based on information given was won by Azim Rali and Ahamed Inthikab.

The forum was an initiative taken by a group of students pursuing higher education - Tiasha Renganathan, Mariam Abdulla and Eshan Tudawe - with the aim of creating an opportunity for students and budding entrepreneurs to discuss and gain from the knowledge of experts thereby equipping themselves with ideas and concepts to be put into practice themselves in future business ventures. The students were supported by the Young Entrepreneurs Sri Lanka and The Sunday Times FT in this venture. Ceylinco Insurance Life and Cool Cash by Seylan Bank came forward as sponsors and showed their commitment to entrepreneurship development in Sri Lanka.