A Debrief from the G20 Summit in Canada
This June 26-27 the city of Toronto, Canada was host to the G20 heads of state for their biannual G20 Leaders Summit. The 2010 G20 Summit was the fourth summit of the Group of twenty major economies and Alex Mitchell, Head of Influencer Relations at the Institute of Directors gives EnterpriseUpfront an account of the weekend…
The Toronto Summit was much like any other, security was high, protesters were making their voice heard, there were lots of friendly chats and hand shakes on camera and heavy negotiations behind the scenes. However there was one major difference. For the first time ever at a G20 summit the voice of the young entrepreneur was being heard and listened to.
The IoD and Enterprise UK lead a delegation of three highly successful, award winning UK entrepreneurs to the inaugural G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit. The three-day summit provided a unique forum for young entrepreneurs (ages 20-45) and those organisations representing entrepreneurs, from G20 countries to meet, exchange ideas and to establish international networks and partnerships that will drive sustainable global economic growth.
The aim of the three-day Summit was to impact the G20 by presenting a declaration representing the voice of all 20 countries to maximize the economic potential of young entrepreneurs in their respective economies.
So, what was the UK’s role? The UK was there to help develop the recommendations and ensure that our own experiences and contribution to youth entrepreneurship could be recognised. The IoD and Enterprise UK regarded the Summit as a great opportunity to secure the role of youth entrepreneurship in the rebuilding of our economy and we wanted to ensure that the UK’s leadership role was at the heart of future international action.
Each participating country brought a President and Lead Sherpa to do
the formal work of negotiating the communiqué, and a delegation of young
entrepreneurs. The UK’s delegation included Alex Mitchell, Head of
Influencer Relations at the IoD as President; Peter Grigg, Head of
Policy and Research at Enterprise UK as Lead Sherpa and three young
entrepreneurs:
- Philip Kerr, Director of Innovas Consulting Ltd
- Nathaniel Peat, the entrepreneur behind award winning business, The Safety Box
- Waqas Baggia, is an award winning entrepreneur and co-founder of Kreative Iron
Over three days, the delegations managed to finalise and sign the official communiqué from the Summit and present it to business leaders and Canadian Ministers. The communiqué in brief urges action in five areas:
- Access to funding: Governments therefore should support alternative
mechanisms and institutions that provide young entrepreneurs with the
capital they need to start and grow their businesses.
- Coordinated support: Governments should encourage greater
collaboration and cooperation among organizations across the public,
private and non-profit sectors, both within our countries and across
international boundaries.
- Entrepreneurship culture: Examples of entrepreneurs who have overcome
these and other challenges are role models that can serve as powerful
teachers and we encourage our governments to find ways to share these
positive examples.
- Regulation and taxation: Governments should reduce the administrative
burden for early-stage businesses founded by young entrepreneurs and
enact tax measures that will encourage their growth.
- Education and training: Governments should encourage entrepreneurial
education that value real life experiences – in our schools, colleges
and universities and through non-traditional, community-based means.
Was it a success? The simple answer is a resounding Yes. The young entrepreneurs and organisations that support them were able to agree on a pragmatic set of actions for G20 countries to implement that will support our future economies. The summit also highlighted the critical role that entrepreneurs play in our economies round the world, from job creation to solving some of the toughest challengers facing mankind.
We can be proud that the UK had a strong influence on the Summit. In terms of influencing the final communiqué we helped to make it more specific on key areas, reflect more urgency and focus on the realities of being an entrepreneur and ensured that it didn’t extenuate myths about entrepreneurs.
The summit also confirmed what is easy to forget. That in the UK we have a great history of enterprise initiatives. The scale and impact of Global Entrepreneurship Week and Make Your Mark with a Tenner being just two great examples.
It was also clear that there are amazing things happening in other countries. These include Canada’s mentoring programme lead by the Canadian Youth Business Foundation and their microcredit initiative. The USA’s Global Student Enterprise Awards developed and run by the Entrepreneurs Organization’s. India are doing amazing things with microcredit and marginalised groups including a 200k rupee investment for entrepreneurs from banks. Japan and Russia are both trying to address the fact that entrepreneurship has not been a big part of society for a long time with Russia for example training professors in entrepreneurship to get into universities. Saudi Arabia looking at the role of family learning in promoting entrepreneurship and have had over 100k applications for enterprise loans. Australia is building networks and mentoring schemes. Spain is challenging the reputation of entrepreneurs as thieves! The EU has lots of activity through the Erasmus programme. Brazil has created entrepreneurial mayors in cities and is aiming to start enterprise education at 7. France has invented a tax status for ‘autopreneurs’ as a step just before self-employment. And Turkey has an Entrepreneurs Academy for MBA and Masters students.
The summit concluded with officially establishing the G20 Young Entrepreneur Alliance, a body which will meet prior to each G20 Summit ensuring the voice of the young entrepreneur is heard and listened to by the leaders of the Worlds most important economies. The IoD and Enterprise UK are the two founding UK organisations in this body and we will continue to help navigate a clear remit and actions for the group moving forward.
Alex Mitchell is Head of Influencer Relations at The Institute of Directors.
IoD Website: https://www.iod.com/Home/
Alex Mitchell’s Blog: www.mynameisalex.co.uk