The National Dialogue was attended by 25 youth participants with almost half joining the 2-day programme from the southern region of Maldives. The first day focused on empowering these youth entrepreneurs through a capacity building workshop where the participants were introduced to aspects of design thinking and learning how to pitch their startup ideas.
The second day, which was also attended by government and private sector representatives, involved panel discussions on youth entrepreneurship programmes offered by different agencies and the available financial opportunities.
The youth entrepreneurs also undertook their final pitching on the second day and the top two startup ideas were awarded an enrollment to the Youth Co: Lab Regional Springboard Programme where they would be able to access mentoring services from international experts and provided with the opportunity to attend regional summits and workshops in the upcoming year.
The highlight of the day was the commitment shown by our private sector representatives who offered support to the youth entrepreneurs to further prototype and implement their startup ideas.
