Platforms to fuel growth of local startups
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Participants and winner Yathush Kulenthirana at the National Finals of the GSEA Sri Lanka 2020
The world’s premier global competition for student Entrepreneurs, organized by the Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO) of Sri Lanka, the Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards (GSEA) 2020 was held recenty for the 6th consecutive year.
Over the years, Sri Lanka has produced three global finalists. The EO intends to continue empowering entrepreneurs across industries in their mission to transform the world.
The competition is organized globally by their own local chapters of the EO since 1987.The organisation is active in 61 countries with 14,000+ members in 195 chapters. Over the years, the local EO chapter in Sri Lanka has actively created opportunities to fuel and accelerate the growth of local startups run by young student entrepreneurs.
The competition began at a national level with local student entrepreneurs participating and pitching to a panel of judges. The winner will be competing at the GSEA Global Finals, which will be held on April 26 onwards in South Africa.
“GSEA Sri Lanka 2020 saw applications of numerous student entrepreneurs running their own startups while pursuing an undergraduate education. They hailed from several cities islandwide. These applications were shortlisted to identify the top 5 student entrepreneurs who went onto participate at the GSEA Sri Lanka 2020 National Finals, where they pitched to a panel of judges,” said Ambassador for GSEA Sri Lanka, Enosh Praveen.
Yathusha Kulenthiran was chosen as the winner at the National Finals of the GSEA Sri Lanka 2020. Yathusha is the founder of the Northern Province based startup named ‘Olai’. Olai is an online marketplace selling handwoven bags and an assortment of palmyrah products.
GSEA is a competition open to all undergraduates who have been running their own startup for six consecutive months and generated $500 or Rs. 90,000 in total revenue, or received $1,000 in funding. “The Sri Lankan education system is not designed to breed entrepreneurs. As a country and culture, we’re taught to follow only instructions.
Amidst dozens of entrepreneurship programmes focusing on the startups and business plan, GSEA takes a whole new approach in identifying the students with true entrepreneurial qualities within,”, added Enosh.
Students or startups interested can drop a message through the local social media channels. Moving forward there will also be GSEA Student Ambassadors in all universities and selected schools to represent the local committee.
All those interested, can get in touch via the Facebook page for GSEA Sri Lanka: https://www.facebook.com/gseasrilanka/
Meleeza Rathnayake