YES, an ideal platform for youths

What say you on the issue below?

REALISING the importance of providing a platform for youth to voice out their opinion and ideas, an inaugural Youth Engagement Summit (YES 2009) will be held on Nov 16 and 17 at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC), Kuala Lumpur.

Themed “South East Asia Youth for CHANGE”, The summit will be the first of its kind in Asia, uniting about 6,000 youth representatives from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Laos and Brunei.

The event will bring together some of the most motivational global change icons from around the world, who have pledged to help a new generation of young leaders to cope with, overcome, and rise above the many challenges of the 21st century.

“We must give our youths the right tools to define a direction for change,” said event organising chairman Harmandar Singh.

He said the summit was about youths coming together to express their aspirations and dreams for a better future.

Harmandar said the idea for the event was mooted after meeting two people who were involved in the United States President Obama’s campaign.

“First we worked with Obama’s presidential campaign director Roger Frisk and then the campaign’s external online director Scott Goodstein.

“It was pretty much Obama’s year for us and his ‘change’ theme has inspired us to hold this summit,” said Harmandar.

He said during the two-day event, participants would have a chance to listen and meet high profiles personalities from various fields including Sir Bob Geldorf, the Founder of Live Aid, world chess legend Garry Kasparov, co-founder of online network Twitter Biz Stone, Facebook market development director Randi Zuckerberg, former World Bank managing director Dr Mamphele Ramphele and the sole survivor of the tragic Andes airplane crash Nando Parado.

Malaysia’s own Tony Fernandez, will also be part of the summit’s line up of speakers.

“We hope this talk will inspire the participants,”

He said the organising committee was trying to secure sponsorship for the participants.

The organiser is also attempting to rally the involvement of over 1,000,000 youths between the ages of 15 and 35 years, to take part in an online Youth Survey to produce the Sea For Change Youth Report.