LAHORE – The Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs Summit (YLES), 2011 kicked off on Wednesday at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) Sports Complex with an exciting opening ceremony. This year, theme of YLES is Rural Entrepreneurship and according to organisers, the topic has become particularly important after the recent floods.
The ceremony featured instrumental band Quadrum, as the name suggests, the quartet with four drums offered a unique musical experience. With no lyrics and just music, created by varying drum beats, Quadrum’s performance was intense, building up tempo, as they continued to perform. Silver confetti was shot into the air on both sides of the stage, not once but twice, forcing youngsters to click their cameras held high in the air.
Tetra Pack Managing Director (MD) Azhar Ali, Arif Habib Investments Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Naseem Baig, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Senior Brand Officer Ghazala Mobin, Tetra Pack Communications Manager Rauf Hameed and renowned entrepreneur Syed Babar Ali attended the event. Babar spoke of how events such as this one reinstate his faith in LUMS. Rabia Malik, head of the host team, applauded the behind-the-scenes work of all her directors and team members and congratulated them on making the event a success.
Floods left the country devastated, taking away livelihood of millions of people and inundating entire farmlands, event organisers said that YLES 2011 would encourage young minds to think about innovative and practical solutions to help Pakistan. They also lauded Pakistan Today’s contributions in YLES ’11 as its media partner.
Wednesday’s events included the Business Case Study, a dynamic event since businesses face new challenges every day. Decision-making here requires an optimum blend of intuition, perceptiveness and intelligence. The Business Case Study tested exactly those skills and provided delegates with a unique opportunity to prove their business skills and solve actual problems faced by businesses.
Teams had been provided with a case study prior to the event, in this case one narrating success story of Myspace, the social networking website, and how Facebook rose from the ground to give Myspace cutthroat competition. Various delegates were spotted poring over the case study and discussing it with their team mates.
Organisers hoped that current relevance to the youth of social networking platforms would make this event a major success.
Simultaneous to the Business Case Study is another event aimed at getting the youth to think critically and use their business acumen to bring positive changes in society.
The event also featured the Social Entrepreneurship Challenge (SEC). Each team identified a social problem on which they had to make a 3-4 minute documentary highlighting how that problem can be solved. This was followed by PLAY IT, an event that provided delegates with an opportunity to take on role of advertising executives, with complete strategies geared at promotion of assigned brands and products. Product categories included a vast array of goods and services, including milk and beverages, crisps, tea and even diapers.
PLAY IT aims to give a platform to students to think out of the box and show the world the creative side within them in order to establish themselves as witty business persons in today’s world. There will be two rounds involved, spread over duration of the conference. The night ended with a carnival where delegates got an opportunity to unwind, taking off their thinking caps after a hectic day.
