Under the patronage of His Excellency Sh. Mohammed bin Isa Al Khalifa, Chairman of the Bahrain Development Bank (BDB) Group, and the cooperation of the BDB, AIESEC in Bahrain organized the Youth to Business Forum, one of the biggest youth events in the Kingdom of Bahrain on June 2014.
The event aimed at connecting youth and business leaders to discuss relevant topics with Bahraini youth and generated ideas and thoughts about their future. The forum was a platform for dialogue and an exchange of ideas between youth of Bahrain (approx. 300 delegates) and business leaders and entrepreneurs and is a national edition of more than 160 forums implemented by AIESEC in over 124 countries.
The forum mainly targeted university and high-school students as well as fresh graduates. This year’s edition of Youth to Business focused on “Entrepreneurship Trends and Personal & Professional Development of Youth in Bahrain”.
The forum followed a unique flow starting with a panel discussion about the characteristics of the 21st century workforce, where students engaged with top executives, human resource experts, and entrepreneurs in an interesting debate of what differentiates the workforce today than it did a few years back and what students need to know today, before entering the workforce or becoming an entrepreneur.
Thereafter, the students had the option to enter two different workshops one focused toward high school and freshman university students and the other more toward university graduates. The workshop targeted high school and first year university students focused on communication and presentation skills, followed by a session about extracurricular activities.
The second workshop targeted fresh graduates and had a different method of encouraging them to create their own opportunities in a workshop called “Hire Yourself”. The workshop was followed by a reflection session about “Discovering Your Passion”. This session prepared the newly graduated students to perceive their identity, understand their values in order to identify what makes them happy to start pursue their dreams.
After interacting with professionals and entrepreneurs in the lectures, the students were challenged in a different way. They were asked to solve real dilemmas that entrepreneurs were facing in an innovative way. The students were divided into six groups and each group had an entrepreneur to share their case study with the students to brainstorm their ideas and work together as a team to come up with solutions. After the entrepreneurs observed their group of students, they were asked to nominate two students that had the most significant contributions towards getting the entrepreneurs out of their tight spot. The nominees were then asked to join their respective entrepreneur’s organizations as interns during the summer period.
The event was a unique opportunity where entrepreneurs interacted with students in a fun, dynamic environment. The forum acted as a platform where the Bahraini youth showcased a proactive spirit in pursuing knowledge and solving real life challenges. All participating entrepreneurs expressed their astonishment with the quality of solutions presented by the students, and their pleasure to have those students on board during the summer to mentor them and benefit from their youthful insights in business management.
The success of this year’s Youth to Business Forum lays a foundation for many more future events to encourage and inspire youth of Generation Y!