The Kumul Foundation will be hosting school outreach programs in parts of the country to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW).
PNG schools will join a global community under the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) of which the Kumul Foundation is a member.
GEW has been recognized and celebrated in Papua New Guinea since 2014 along with 165 other countries across six continents.
The Kumul Foundation will be holding school programs throughout the week led by local entrepreneurs who will visit their old schools in Madang, Port Moresby, Wewak and Buka.
Kumul Founder, Anthony Smare says the aim of GEW in PNG is to promote entrepreneurship in the country, especially to young people, presenting this as a viable future option and to inform policy makers in the ecosystem on what they can do to remove hurdles or assist aspiring entrepreneurs.
“It is particularly important (to spread awareness to young people in PNG) because we have 60,000 leaving our school system each year and existing industry can only provide employment for a fraction of those graduates,” Mr Smare said.
He added that the majority of our population is under thirty and there is a need to find ways to utilize their potential better.
GEW21 will also include entrepreneur Ginia Sialis of bake house SME “Tapioca Delight.”
Kumul will also showcase a number of young entrepreneurs on short films that will share their journeys to inspire others social media promotion. The stories can be accessed on the Kumul Foundation and Startup PNG Facebook pages.
“We think that young Papua New Guineans find it more inspiring when they see a success story who started out from the same position that they are in now.
It will be so wonderful to see those interactions when they occur because I think it will be truly emotional and inspirational,” Smare said.
The Foundation is still looking for more volunteers for school programs and are asking anyone who is interested to get in touch with them via the StartupPNG Facebook page or email Nedi on nedi@kumul.org.
He also informed that the Foundation’s Start-up PNG Convention held in 2019 which had around 2000 attendees and has unfortunately been put off due to the pandemic, will also return next year during GEW22.
Smare also encourages the public to support the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) which will be joining the GEW celebrations with a trade fair at the Moresby Arts Theatre on November 8 and 9.