The second edition of the upcoming GECommunity Summit 2017 serves as a comprehensive platform to strengthen the thriving entrepreneurship ecosystem by inspiring and facilitating innovations. 

The summit, which will be held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre from 12 to 13 December 2017 will play host to 50 local and international speakers, 330 exhibitors, 20 keynote and panel discussions, and up to 100 GEC Lab sessions. 

“Entrepreneurship is the vehicle in designing the future of industries,” said Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah, Secretary-General of Treasury, Ministry of Finance Malaysia as well as Chairman of GECommunity Summit 2017. 

According to Irwan, the summit brings together local, regional, and international parties within the entrepreneurship ecosystem so that ideas and initiatives can come into fruition.

“Strengthening the ecosystem is no easy feat. That is why we’re bringing various parties with different roles, expertise, and initiatives to join forces in making this summit a success,” added Irwan.

GECommunity Summit 2017 is initiated by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), organised by the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC), and in collaboration with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Malaysia (MOSTI) and the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia (MOHE) with the Global Entrepreneurship Movement (GEM) as the community partner.

“We are bringing together parties within the local, regional, and international entrepreneurship ecosystems under one roof to transform and enhance sectors and industries. Success to us is when we meet the objective of the summit, which is when conversations and ideas that are sparked at the summit translate into solutions that ultimately transform sectors. We have to walk the talk,” said Irwan. 

GEC Labs the core of GECommunity Summit 2017

GECommunity aims to plant the seed of industry transformation through GEC Labs, which are the core of the summit. Each Lab session will run on a two-hour block consisting of corporate players, entrepreneurs, ecosystem builders, and policy makers from around the world who will deep dive into discussions on key topics across 15 focus areas. 

In the months prior, the public was asked to contribute potential topics to drive the discussions and chart the way forward for industries and ultimately create new cross border initiatives and partnerships.

Each GEC Lab session will be facilitated by a Lab Owner or initiator of the initiative with an audience of 50 participants which will be a collective of corporate players, ecosystem influencers, policy makers, and entrepreneurs.

 The objective of GEC Labs is to explore new ideas and opportunities through conversations with players in the entrepreneurship ecosystem and ultimately use these ideas to transform and enhance industries.

Apart from exploring fresh new ideas, GEC Labs is also a platform to add polish and shine to ideas and initiatives that are already in the pipeline by connecting the right parties.

“In the grand scheme of things, we want the push from GEC Labs to spur new economies, encourage industry transformation, and nurture collaboration between countries to support entrepreneurs from different sectors through policies and initiatives,” said Irwan. 

This year’s GEC Labs will explore focus areas which include Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning; E-Commerce & Retail; Fashion & Beauty; Food & Beverage; Hardware & IoT; Health & Biotech; Media, Gaming & Entertainment; Mobility & Transportation; Security & IT; Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality; Education; Social Innovation; Fintech & Payment; Creative; and Smart Cities.

There has been particular interest in the areas of Social Innovation, Education, and Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, which are the top three themes for topic submission. 

The summit will also see 50 Global Community Leaders of the GEM network from 19 countries participate at the summit. At present, GEM will be facilitating a total of 38 GEC Labs, with the Global Community Leaders from around the world leading the sessions. 

Last year, 50 initiatives were raised during GECommunity Summit 2016. The GEC Labs for 2016 covered 9 clusters, which involved 150 experts and 1,500 participants from 60 countries and a total of more than 30 government agencies.

As with the inaugural GECommunity Summit held last year, the aim is for the GEC Labs at this year’s edition to result in initiatives with a value creation of approximately MYR100 million over the next two years. 

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