Youth Business International is proud to once again be a Global Partner of Global Entrepreneurship Week.
In its role as Global Partner, YBI continues to support Global Entrepreneurship Week by galvanising its network to become involved with the campaign. Around the world, YBI will provide official Hosts in eight countries: Barbados, Belize, Canada, Dominica, India, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia and the Ukraine, all of whom have a range of activities planned for the Week.
YBI will be launching a report on access to finance which will demonstrate why governments, financial institutions and businesses should recognise the non-financial support that YBI provides to young entrepreneurs when assessing the risk of lending to such individuals.
YBI and GEW will also work together to run the People’s Choice poll, part of the YBI Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Some Global Entrepreneurship Week highlights from around the YBI network:

• Canadian Youth Business Foundation: Preparations are in full swing as the Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF) prepares to host the international movement for the second year in a row. From 15-21 November 2010, CYBF will champion the GEW Canada theme of “Entrepreneurs Can Change the World,” reaching out to all Canadians with the message that youth entrepreneurship impacts everyone across the country. Building on the success of GEW Canada 2009, CYBF will continue to encourage a culture of entrepreneurship through initiatives as varied as a roundtable discussion with Canadian government leaders, national advertising and social media campaigns, educational seminars, viral videos, networking events and online activities like the Great Canadian Mentoring Challenge (GCMC). Open to entrepreneurs, mentors or anyone else with valid business advice, the GCMC is based on the rationale that everyone has great advice that can be useful to another, whether they have five months, five years or five decades worth of experience. From 4 October to 30 November, participants can log on to www.mentorchallenge.ca or Twitter under the hashtag #GCMC and share their best tips on marketing, social media, business planning, funding or entrepreneur skill development. Submissions will then be reused by CYBF as a resource for young entrepreneurs.
• Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST) India: GEW India recently got off to a flying start as The Prince of Wales was on hand to officially launch the Week (see separate story). Declaring himself thrilled to be back in India supporting BYST and GEW, the Prince presented awards to the winners of a sustainable enterprise competition at the launch. BYST has full programme of GEW events planned, including the ‘Sowing the Seed’ initiative which will expose over 10,000 youth to entrepreneurship and will invite participants to take an oath to support another person to engage with entrepreneurship in the following year. 
• Barbados Youth Business Trust: The winner of the official Champion Catalyser Award: Most Events Per Capita 2009. The inaugural Barbados Entrepreneurship Conference on 16-17 November will be taking place during the Week. Already well on its way to becoming one of the highest-impact enterprise events in the region, the conference and gala dinner will be attended by more than 500 people and will feature international and local experts facilitating different aspects of the foundational pillars needed to develop sustainable entrepreneurship in Barbados.

tags: partner