The New Nation - Internet Edition

NATION BUSINESS REPORT

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Ltd in Bangladesh launched the Young Entrepreneurs Awards (YEA) 2008-2009, a business plan writing competition, for the third consecutive year at a ceremony at its new retail branch in Banani in the city yesterday.

YEA was originally launched seven years ago to encourage innovation and creativity amongst students in Hong Kong. Since that time, over 14,000 students have submitted over 5300 ideas in the competition. In 2009, students from Hongkong, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Brunei and Bangladesh will compete in the regional final.

In 2008 over 333 teams from Bangladesh made submissions. 3 winning teams (Gold, Silver & Bronze winners) from Bangladesh were provided with an opportunity to take a weeklong study trip to Hongkong, where the gold team competed with the winners from the each of the other regions for cash prize of close to Tk 900, 000 equivalent. The team came in second while the first team in 2007 won the "Best of the Best" award at the grand finale held in Hongkong.

The competition will be held in 3 phases with students in 2-3 person teams requested to submit a business plan at YEA website (www.asiayea.com) by 11 January 2009. Following which, 30 teams will be selected for the second round and provided with a workshop on business plan writing.

They will be requested to submit their business plan by 15 March. Out of the 30 teams, 7 teams will be chosen for the final round. These teams will be provided with a second workshop on presentation skills and will be required to present in front of a panel of judges on 30 April 2009. The regional competition in Hong Kong will take place in June.

Speaking on the occasion, Sanjay Prakash, Chief Executive Officer of HSBC Bangladesh said that HSBC was proud to provide students with access to this regional competition and hoped that Bangladesh would continue to produce talented young entrepreneurs that could compete and win on the global stage.

Mustafizur R Khan, Head of Marketing and Communications and Syed A H Uddin, Head of Human Resources of HSBC Bangladesh also spoke on the occasion.

Members of the local winning team from the 2008 competition were also present at the event and shared their experiences of the regional competition. More information about the HSBC Young Entrepreneurs Awards competition can be found at www.asiayea.com