Tagumpay ang kabataan!

The hostage tragedy that happened last week shocked all of us. It was a very sad day not only for the affected Hong Kong tourists, their families, friends and countrymen, but even for all of us Filipinos. It was an unfortunate incident that could have happened anywhere, and to anyone. We sympathize with the affected families.

I am sure that the proper procedures in handling situations like this will be addressed and corrected. We do have to move on. Hopefully, relationships between two countries will heal sooner as all Filipinos also condemned what happened. Filipinos are hospitable people and love to treat our guests in our own homes. Wherever we are, even in a foreign land, we are known for our hospitality.

We must remain focused on making our economy stronger through job creation and the only way to do this is through the creation of more negosyos.

We have always credited our Filipino-Chinese brothers and sisters for the amazing negosyo or enterprising mindset they have, as they start to mold their children to Go Negosyo at a young age. As we usually observe, Filipino parents would normally tell their children to study hard to get a good job, while our Filipino-Chinese friends would say “study fast and help me run the store now, or start a new business”.

I believe it is important that we present a lot of negosyo exposures to our youth, especially those with limited opportunities to do so. As we do in all our Negosyo Summits, forums and caravans, we open the chance for the young Filipinos out there to meet and greet our successful youth entrepreneur icons so that they could be inspired. They can listen to forums and exciting discussions with the young entrepreneurs on how they did it. Anyone can learn from them directly. These exposures and the 300 exhibits that present either business ideas or outright opportunities for any aspiring entrepreneur, the seminar sessions, and the FREE mentoring booth manned by our negosyo advisers (Angelpreneurs) will surely provide a different kind of experience beyond the confines of the classrooms. Let’s give this chance to our children and students.After all, most entrepreneurs start with these exposures. By attending trade fairs or travelling to different places, you get a gem of an idea that could be the start of something big.

I guess that’s the reason why our first youth entrepreneurship summit last year was indeed a blast. About 20,000 Filipino youth and other members of different sectors flooded the World Trade Center. It was an amazing experience not only for the participants, but also for the entrepreneurs and mentors who shared their stories and tips. We know we barely scratched the surface that time, as there were many who were not able to come in due to crowd size. We are therefore doing this again this year to accommodate more participants. It will be held on Sept. 27 at the two halls of the World Trade Center.

The summit will be an upgraded version of last year’s, as we have also focused on further improving the program. Aside from having our core topics on generating inspiration and motivation to dream, believe and achieve, leadership, having the winning attitude and enterprising character, spotting opportunities, using information technology in operations or in marketing the products (which the youth is quite familiar with), there will be franchising ideas, basic marketing exposures, and the important new dimension of social entrepreneurship.

We have also started to angle many of our sessions on social entrepreneurship as we see the beauty of mixing business objectives with social objectives. In other words, we can see a lot of opportunities where one can create a profitable venture while helping improve the lives of certain sectors or communities. Social enterprises can be environmental-friendly business models, e.g., using abundant waste as raw materials. These areas are very appealing as well to the youth. In fact, we have involved the group of Bam Aquino and Mark Ruiz. They are deeply involved in Microventures, an organization that provides financing and technical assistance to underprivileged women. They also help them run a branded sari-sari store called Hapinoy, which they usually refer to as the convenience store for the masa. We have also invited the likes of Illac Diaz of My Shelter Foundation and Reese Fernandez of Rags2Riches, together with their fashion adviser Rajo Laurel.

We also rarely see the young man behind the successful Mang Inasal. Injap Sia is usually soft-spoken, but he will be more generous enough to share his advice for the youth. Ray Gapuz, a long-time Go Negosyo advocate behind the biggest and successful nursing review school in the country, will also be there. The creative and inspiring Ronald Pineda of Folded and Hung will also be joining us. These are just a few of the young and successful entrepreneurs who will be there.

One of the country’s top motivational speakers Francis Kong will be giving an inspiring talk. Plus, our dedicated Angelpreneurs Dean Pax Lapid, Ping Sotto, Butz Bartolome, Luis Cruz and many more experts will be there to give their presentations and to provide free mentoring.

We are inviting everyone to the 2010 Go Negosyo: Tagumpay ang Kabataan, Youth Entrepreneurship Summit on Sept. 27, 2010 at the World Trade Center. The Summit is open to students, out-of-school youth, Sangguniang Kabataan, youth organizations, and other youth groups. Parents and “non-youth” are also very much welcome to join us and to encourage their children to take advantage of this rare opportunity. This is once again FREE ENTRANCE, so we encourage every Filipino youth out there to discover their full potential through this summit. Now is the time – Tagumpay ang Kabataan.

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Go Negosyo would also like to invite everyone to The 9th Filipino Franchise Show on Sept. 16-19, 2010 in the World Trade Center. This is organized and presented by the Association of Filipino Franchisers, Inc. (AFFI), one of Go Negosyo’s long-time partners.

AFFI is an organization of successful local franchisers as well as new and promising franchise concepts in the food, retail, service, systems, technology, and many other industries. The organization serves as a “big brother” system to the entrepreneurs who are members. Being a member of a legitimate organization that shares the same vision can also greatly contribute to the growth of the entrepreneur and the business. AFFI members also function as mentors to aspiring entrepreneurs, especially franchisees, who are willing and determined to learn.

Go Negosyo has a FREE NEGOSEM (Negosyo Seminar) as part of the Franchise Show’s program. Our NEGOSEM will be on Sept. 18, 2010 Saturday from 11:00am to 7:00pm. Our Angelpreneurs and entrepreneurship mentors will be there in the program area and in our booth to address negosyo concerns and inquiries.

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Contact me: [email protected] or Joey Concepcion Facebook account. Visit www.gonegosyo.net. Watch GO NEGOSYO: Kaya Mo! Show in QTV, Saturday and Sunday 8 to 8:30 a.m., with replays in NBN every Tuesday 9:15 to 10:15 p.m.