ASEAN Business Youth Association (ABYA) is one of the three winning teams of the inaugural Youth Action Challenge under the Future of Jobs category. The results were released on the 19th of July, 2020. As winners, ABYA is granted SGD 50,000 funding to make their idea a reality.

 "The Judges recognised the sustainability and potential of our idea, and that's why we were able to secure a prize!"- ASEAN Business Youth association 

Today, ASEAN is one of the fastest-growing regions and most attractives for Foreign Direct Investment. However, many youth Singaporeans are still unaware of the enormous opportunities the region holds, especially educational and career-related. 

ABYA has been conceptualised as a platform that enables youth in Singapore to understand, build a social network, and to sustain engagement with the ASEAN region. ABYA is preparing to do it primarily through three main steps:

• Generating content to allow youths easy access to the information and know-how;
• Organising overseas experience trips that can have exposure to cultural and local heritage;
• Organising a 12-week industry immersion programme where Singapore youth get the opportunity to experience living and working with an enterprise in the region.

ABYA team members are: Veronica Low, undergraduate student at SIT, Clarence Ng, undergraduate student SMU, Isabelle Goh, B.A. graduated from NUS, Kelvin Kho, the Co-Founder of Diverse Origins, Rachel Low, undergraduate at NTU, Pranav Krishna, involved in his National Service and also the Founder FoodShare Inc, and Soon Poh Suan studying her Bachelors at NUS.

The Youth Co: Lab Singapore team had the opportunity to interview ABYA to understand their vision, their plans, their challenges and what they plan to do with their project in the long term. Here is an excerpt of the interview:

1. How did the Circuit Breaker period affect the progress of your project? 

Luckily, although we had to adapt our physical events to webinars and engagements, Circuit Breaker did not greatly affect our progress of the project. In fact, it gave us more time to build the foundations of our programmes so that we can deliver the best to our youth participants

2. Tell us a bit about the biggest challenge you’ve faced since you started this Challenge?

In the beginning, we faced some difficulties in finding organisations and mentors for our programme. Fortunately, we managed to overcome it by tapping on to our supporting organisation as well as our mentors. Another challenge was sourcing for funding which would allow us to sustain ABYA in the short and the long term.

3. What are your thoughts on the sustainability of your project? Where do you see your initiative in the next 2-3 years?

In the next 2-3 years, we are hoping to see the 3 programmes, namely ABYA LEAPS, ABYA ACADEMY & ABYA LEARNING EXPEDITION take flight and have consistent programmes to be the leading community of ASEAN-savvy youths in Singapore.

 

 

4. What is the impact you would like to see as a result of your work?  

We hope to be the voice of youths, as we stand strong as a community by negotiating for and bridging Singaporean youths with the ASEAN region. Ultimately, ABYA hopes to be a common platform for Singaporean youths to gain more interest, awareness, and knowledge about ASEAN.

 5. Might you expand your idea to also include youth from all over ASEAN to participate?

Yes, definitely! We would like to engage other ASEAN youth to participate in our programme to increase cross-cultural interaction. This could be in the form of hosting ASEAN youth counterparts when they visit Singapore!

We are so thrilled for ABYA to be announced as one of the winners of the inaugural Youth Action Challenge. Their idea, their energy and their mission to truly make Singaporean Youth ASEAN ready has already taken flight. We are looking forward to supporting them in their journey of growth as they build their programmes and impact youth in the long term.

ASEAN Business Youth Association

About the Youth Action Challenge

The Youth Action Challenge is part of the SG Action Plan and it provides the youth with a platform to showcase their ideas to tackle these challenges along with having their say in the policymaking process. Organised by the National Youth Council in partnership with The Youth Co:Lab in Singapore, a joint initiative of Citi Foundation and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The Challenge brings youth-led ideas and initiatives to center-stage, providing them with the support, mentorship and financial assistance along the way. 

Read more on Youth Action Challenge Winners Series in our latest updates  section!

If you want to also take action and be a part of the Youth Action Challenge Season 2, you can register your interest HERE.