Curator of TEDxYouth@KL from Malaysia - Teoh Chon Giap

Story covered by IJ Anita Tejwani
Published on: 28th July 2014
        

Tell us more about yourself - Who are you and what do you do?

Hi! I am Teoh Chon Giap. I am passionate about entrepreneurship, project management, talent development, exponential technology and youth leadership. I have been managing projects/events since early age, and am currently a full time event organizer. One of my most recognized projects that I organize annually is known as "TEDxYouth@KL". I am the curator and the Sponsorship lead of TEDxYouth@KL 2012 - 2014. This event is recognized as the largest TEDxYouth Event in South East Asia. The seats were sold out in the time frame of 2 weeks prior to the event with the support of 800 enthusiastic youth leaders. The event was featured in Malaysian Newspaper, Radio Station, Television, Magazine and Online Media. Besides, I have also project managed and run events that are up to 3,000 capacities.

Sounds interesting! What is TEDxYouth@KL all about?

TEDx basically represents the words Technology, Entertainment and Design (T.E.D). The TEDx Program is designed to help communities, organizations and individuals to spark conversation and connection through local TED-like experiences. At TEDx events there will be a combination of brilliant presenters from the T.E.D industry and TED Talks videos. It is planned and coordinated independently under a free license granted by TED.com.

In your experience, what are the 3 Winning Traits that Entrepreneurs should possess when they start their business?

Starting a business is easy, the challenges are how do you manage and make it scalable.

1) Be purpose driven:
Knowing why you are doing something drives you forward; it helps you to persevere through challenges. It helps you to communicate clearly with stakeholders, leaders, team mates, clients, even friends.

2) Be persistent whether it is for personal development or business growth:
Make sure you are growing with the things that you are doing. For business case, it is all about bringing profits in business. I am involved with sales. Therefore, I have to measure how many sales or profit that I am bringing into my company weekly. How many appointments you make a day, and how many sales you have closed? In this way, you are able to track your progress and learn how to grow faster.

3) Be an explorer:
Be curious. Ask questions. Imagine stuff. Talk to people. Read a lot. Keep Learning. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Marketing is King! How did you publicize your business? How did you get people to notice you and not your competitors?

Marketing is about Values. The market is very noisy, and we're not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So, we have to be really clear on what we want our potential customers to know about us.

We believe in a vision of "Ideas worth spreading"; we are providing a platform to allow people to learn, share and discuss new or interesting ideas from the T.E.D industry. For every attendee who attends our event, they are clear about that.

On a practical note, with marketing strategy we mainly leverage on Social Media Marketing and University's Campus Marketing as our main target market is youths who are currently studying in Universities/Colleges. Understand who your target audience is and find out the most effective marketing channels to reach them.

They say, Talents are what make or break the business. For yourself, how did you get your talents and what did you do to make them remain working for you?

We open for recruitment application through Facebook and also referrals from friends. We filter our applications strictly as we want to make sure our project volunteers/employees believe in the vision of TED or TEDxYouth@KL.

We believe that our project's organizing team is one of our greatest assets. The majority of our teammates are from age of 19 to 23 who are Generation Y's. We promise everyone in the team that we will grow and learn together. Everyone is given a fair chance to show their capability and leadership opportunity. We truly understand what values that the Gen Y's want, and we are able to feed them with what they need and want. That has kept them wanting to work with us.

How do you define Success?

Success is a universal desire that many of us strive to achieve in our lives. We all aim to lead successful lives be it in relationship, personal, or career. It is the reason we educate ourselves and work hard. We believe that it brings us joy and gives meaning to our lives.

Everyone has a different definition towards Success. I believe "Success is a journey and not a destination". It is not necessary that we are only successful when we achieve something. It is what we are doing daily that defines whether we are successful or not. Ask yourself this question, "Am I doing something every day that leads towards the goal that I have set?" If you are not, change it and start taking action towards your goal.

Which was the most challenging situation that you are proud of having faced and overcome, whether it is in travelling or marketing or business development?

One of my proudest challenges that I faced and overcame is the fear of rejection. I always had to approach companies for sponsorship to cover my event cost. When I was new in sales, I faced many rejections. I felt frustration, fear, and it lowered my confident thinking that I was not good enough. Then, after experiencing more failures and rejections through my life in career, I had to go through more than 10 rejections everyday through my sales role and I started to feel normal. I am pretty sure that if we can't overcome failures and rejection we won't be able to go far or be successful in life because, there are so many negative people in the world that will try to stop our dreams and ambitions.

It's always scary when you look at something from far away. I encourage you to try to walk over the obstacles and see what happened? You never learn how to swim until you are in the water. We must set a mindset to test and be ready to make mistakes, learn from your mistakes fast and then move on to improve. When you overcome the fear of rejection you can do wonders.

What is your advice to people who want to make a change in their lives?

A quote that I came across when I was 16 years old was "Master Your Mind, and Design Your Destiny". I was invited to attend a 3 hour seminar that was spoken by Adam Khoo, a motivational speaker from Singapore. That quote changed my life and I want to share it with you.

We always wonder as to how do we improve and how do we become more successful in the things we do. I think it is all about mindset, it is all about how we control what we think and how we act. If you truly want to make a change, first make sure you are able to control your emotion and think logically in every decision that you are going to make. How is your decision going to benefit the goals that you want to achieve? Then, look for someone whom you admire a lot and wish to be like that person. Ask him/her to be your mentor, learn the tips and tricks from that person and work hard with the things which you want to do. I can assure your growth will be exponential.

You mentioned that you are a tech-enthusiast. Can you further explain why do you love technology and how do you see technology helping us in the future?

The world is entering a period of accelerated technological change. Today's technology has changed all of our lives, the way we communicate, the way we learn, the way we travel and, of course, the way we run business.

Words from Ray Kurzweil

"Consider the tremendous power of the exponential growth of technologies: The computer in your cellphone today is a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful compared to that in the past. That's a billion fold increase in price performance of computing since I was an undergraduate. Now apply the same dramatic increase to other fields that depend on information technology," says Ray Kurzweil.

"If you look at the implications of exponential growth, it creates a very different picture of the future and it's not intuitive," says Kurzweil. Problems that may seem intractable now can become eminently solvable in the near future. Not only should this inform investing and planning for the future, it should also change what you think of as possible for the humanity. Soon, things which we could barely have imagined decades before might be within reach.

To further understand what this is all about, I encourage you to watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a175DEtW6M

Do you have any Role Models that inspired you to be a visionary?

Yes, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Jack Ma. They are recognized as Legendary Entrepreneurs with great vision. I highly encourage you to read about them or watch their videos from YouTube..

Mark Aethen Agana Who made it to FINAL 30 of YOUR BIG YEAR 2013 Shares his Inspiring Lessons with IU.

The article is in direct speech. The answers are as submitted by the Interviewee himself

A Short Bio of Mark Aethen Agana:
I’m Mark Aethen G. Agana, born in South Cotabato, Philippines. I’m a multisport athlete, a community volunteer for education, environment, and health, an aspiring social entrepreneur, and a proud Filipino. I grew up in a simple home, where most of the time, we had just enough, and the rest of the time there was a little less than enough. However, I didn’t allow my circumstances be an excuse for me not to succeed in life. Currently, I work as technical consultant in various NGO projects and an alumnus of The Outstanding Students of the Philippines.

I envision a nation where Filipinos have equity to access to quality college education and who are productive and responsible leaders of society. All of my advocacies, my firing desire for change and progress, these are the same reasons why I joined the World Merit community. These hopes ignited and relieved my dreams of fighting for a better world, starting in Philippines.  I gained an incredible amount of energy and motivation from other members who continue to push one another to reach their full potential.

1. What is your vision to Win Your Big Year?
Your Big Year is more than a competition. It is beyond competition. It is not only fun. It is not only inspiring. It is a chance to be one and share true friendship with equally talented people worldwide. It is life-changing and an opportunity to change the world.At the moment, I can say that I have won so much out of YBY. The network and friends I gained out of it is already the reward for engaging and being active in the community. Winning it is just a bonus and an opportunity to lead change and work together for a more equitable, stable, and peaceful world.

2. Why would you want to travel the globe? 
Aside from to be inspired, to see and experience different cultures, to eat, and to meet new and interesting people, I want to travel to mainly experience how people are generally good and to have broader perspective of the world for I believe that the only way to really have a sense of how the world works is to see it yourself.

3. What do you think that you had that the rest dint that brought you this far? 
Everyone in Your Big Year is equally talented and amazing. We all have different inspiring stories to share and we all have the same heart for creating a better global community. But I think what makes me stand out from the rest is the way I packaged my ideas to convey key messages to the community. I think out of the box and do things creatively. Also, I always have a ready smile and make sure I incorporate “fun” factor in everything wonderful I do.

4. One message for the youth of the globe...
Live you dreams. Remember that you can't put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get. Make anything possible and start a journey to confidence. Anything is possible in life... and it begins with the confidence from within.

Sharing also my mantra in life, “keep learning, leading and serving for life.”

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Mr. Michael Suplaag - Young Leader from Phillipines makes it to FINAL 30 of Your Big Year 2013 Competition!

Mr. Michael Suplaag - A Young Leader from Phillipines makes it to the Final 30 of Your Big Year 2013 Competition. Inspiration Unlimited Team from India learns from him about what drives him to be so dynamic and how does it feel to come this far. We wish to share his message with all the youth across the globe to inspire more leaders.

1.      How do you feel reaching the Final 30?

  - I feel happy and overwhelmed. Happy because all my efforts paid off and overwhelmed because not everyone is given this kind of extraordinary opportunity. And it is indeed a great honor for me to be selected in the top 30. Since this global search has begun, I have been working tirelessly to use my talents and energy to further the cause of World Merit.  I now look forward to continue using everything in me to help other people and to be the source of their inspirations to continue dreaming despite the hardships and challenges.

2.      Your lessons (in brief) so far?

-   I have learned a life-long lesson that hard work, determination and intense desire have great rewards. Moreover, interviewing people who have achieved great things has taught me that wisdom is vital to be successful and the tinge of humility in your heart is the ticket to succeed. I also am grateful to have the opportunity to come accross with brilliant youth leaders around the world who have the drive and passions to influence other people and the learnings I got from them are something I would cherish in the rest of my life.

3.      What is your vision why you wish to win Your Big Year?

- A successful career and fulfilling personal life. A state of contentment where you know your value not because of how other people make you feel about yourself but because how you make other people feel about themselves and their lives. Furthermore, the title itself will give me the opportunity to encourage millions of people around the world to set high goals and not stop until their goals are reached. So many people are discouraged because of the conditions they live in.  I will be an ambassador for hope and achievement and show to them how they can rise above their conditions and succeed in life.

4.      What is your inspiration to come this far?

- Aside from God, basically my family is the one that entirely fuels the engine of my desire to succeed in this journey. In addition, people have dreams. So do I. I grew up fully aware of the sad realities of life. That's why I strongly held on to my dreams. The difficulties I have experienced have made me persevere, they made me more eager and driven to make all these dreams happen. And now, that I'm about to reach the top, Your Big Year - Win A Life Changing Prize came to my life. It made the whole climb even more meaningful. Meaningful in the sense that one of the dreams I would like to realize will serve a genuine purpose.

  

5.      One message for the people who apply for next year?

-          Be consistent and be genuine. Feed the burning passion of volunteering and public service in you. Do not be afraid to take the challenges of life. Transform your good thoughts into actions. Remember, the future only belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. So dream your dreams, go where you want to go, and do what want to do for we have one life in this world.

      IU Appreciates his achievements and wishes him for the best! 

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The 10 Most Important Lessons for a lifetime!

Article By Sireesha MK, from IUeMagazine

1. A for Ant!

If the person mentoring you says, it's A for Ant, Believe it is! You might have learnt it's A for Apple and not Ant which is also true but A for Ant applies as well. Don't lose your mental energy in arguing and justifying why it is so. Your Mentor is wise enough to teach you. Believe in him and move forward. You will realize in the course of journey, why he said so.

2. Can I help you?

Not all who walk into your life might be your friends/soul mates ( I still wonder what that is) best buddies. You will meet many like dew who will at times make you blue. You wouldn't be able to see - through, be wise enough to unscrew. Haven't you got a clue? Make friends with a few. (Sorry for the terrible poetry). What I am trying to say is, Connect with the World, Network with a million, Help a thousand, Stay answerable to a ten.

3. Learn - Un-learn - Relearn

The title says it all. At all points of time, have the readiness to learn when you are taught. Be more ready to un-learn when said so and re-learn with the same spirit. Light is a wave, Light is a particle. Light has a dual nature. The definitions changed with time. So how many planets do we have in the Solar system? :)

4. I want to be a Jack of all Trades.

If this is you, let me tell you, I am also like you. There is always a right time for anything to be done. You might have a hundred interests, my friend, but what needs to be done now is more important than what can be done. Keep up to your priorities and commitments first. Do Delay Dump Delegate. One of the 4 D's should be the answer when faced with a question.

5. Where am I heading?

If you have ever played a game of Mario, you can relate well. Anyways, let me explain. When you are playing a game, what matters is, to reach the destination, no matter what comes your way. Ducks, ants, bricks, fire balls, arrows and the rest coming your way really don't matter as what stays in your mind continuously is to win the game. Similarly in this game of life, it is very important to have a clear purpose in mind. It's when the Goal is clear is when your mind aligns to it and the heart is ready to believe, your actions will speak. Let no thorns irritate you, stop you or disappoint you.

6. I want the egg to hatch TODAY?

No matter what you do, certain things take time. Have patience. Your work might not be paid off immediately but it will certainly be paid off someday. Give your best and be not concerned about the results. Your work will fetch it's reward when the right time comes. No work goes waste. Someday the egg will hatch.

7. "I don't want to rise today. I am so bored of coming up every day" says the SUN.

Will that be ok with you? If yes, drop me a mail! If no, read on. Each one of us have been bestowed with a responsibility. We need to be committed in fulfilling them. You are counted on for a particular task to be done. Make sure you do it.

8. E-X-P-E-C-T-A-T-I-O-N

Have expectations out of yourself and not from others. Be responsible and accountable to finish what is given. No one can walk your path. You need to carry yourself when you fall and walk it through. Do not expect people to lift you through the desert. Face the storm and be a strong sailor. If lucky enough you might find a voice which might give you a direction.

9. A pinch of Salt

A pinch of Salt ...can disappoint your taste-buds, spoil your mood, and bring down your bank balance and a lot more :) When you're working in a team, the most important factor that takes the highest place is Communication and Coordination. More than the work you do, what matters is your report. You might spoil the recipe of suc-cess if your report of how much was done was incorrect.

10. H for Happiness

I need a break to fill in happiness. I need to go for a vacation. I need to spend time with friends. I need to be alone. Good Luck. You are digging your own well. It's when you find happiness in your work is when you will be the happiest person in the world. 75% of a person's life consists of Work. If you cannot enjoy what you're doing, you can never be happy. Love yourself and live life!

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Founder Of WORLD MERIT* Talks about MERIT. He Supports IU for #WID.

Written by Chris Arnold, Founder of Smaller Earth, YOUR BIG YEAR & World Merit*.

Today, Inspiration is not that difficult to find. Social Media makes great quotes extremely accessible, almost to a point beyond saturation.  The oratory and poetry of great historical figures is being somewhat undermined by the sheer quantity of ‘wise words’ online.

However, though sharing a platform with the common words of ‘Anonymous’ may dent the ego of past poets and political leaders, I say this ‘inspiration clutter’ is a great thing. It has created a modern day peer pressure to be a source or conduit for inspiration. As Anonymous or perhaps a famous poet first said, there is a pressure now to do well but also to do good.

Users of Social Media have already and irreversibly made a commitment to check or judge the actions and values of politicians and corporations. Though that is not always going to be fair in the unfiltered world of places like Facebook or Twitter, the consequence is that all emerging leaders know that they have to be people of value and values. The best of the upcoming generation know that it makes strategic sense to be collaborative, emotionally aware, culturally aware, ‘social’ entrepreneurs.

In the past, because the chance of being ‘found out’ was much lower, leaders were ‘safe’ if standards occasionally dropped lower than the electorate or customer would want. There were only so many news reporters to go around. Compare this to the speed and distance both news and innuendo can travel today. As David Jones, CEO of HAVAS Worldwide and Founder of One Young World says, "People are now empowered by social media to hold business and leaders accountable. So, if you behave in the wrong way – whether you are the head of an Arab Spring country or News International – then people can sanction you. That has taken corporate social responsibility out of the silo and put it in the P&L statement. Business cannot avoid this.”

In my opinion the remarkable effect of Social Media is not the access to information or communication it has provided, but rather the positive change in culture it is inexorably making. Twenty year olds have always been vaunted as idealists and activists, but today I believe it is increasingly more so. The tools are there to collaborate across borders and the desire to be seen to take action and have positive momentum is something for society to harness.

Old people, and by that I mean everyone who has failed to adapt to the current online methods of communication, will latch onto the painfully frivolous uses of social media. They believe that Twitter is about sharing lunch updates; they believe Facebook is simply a source for inanity; they regard the Internet mostly as an efficient delivery system for porn and a way to browse information – like a big virtual library. This view is irrelevant and almost certainly in its final years.

There is Merit Online. That is a useful pun for me as my organization is called World Merit and we have our own online social community, however, I mean it in a more encompassing way. The upcoming generation is grouping together in ways that will absolutely change the world. Yes! There are huge number of superficial online communities, but just look at how many powerful groups are being formed, for example, www.worldmerit.org, www.oneyoungworld.com, www.dosomething.org. This multi –tasking generation is comfortable with being bombarded with messages that naturally splits its focus. In the same minute it will think about football and famine, pop and poverty, and these groups sit unapologetically next to each other on Facebook and in their consciousness.

So here is my main point. Quotes are unlimited, messaging is unlimited, but because of the actions that the upcoming generations will take and the way that content is easily shared, inspiration is also unlimited.

This has been recognized by my friend, Sujit Lalwani, who happened to be a finalist in the www.yourbigyear.com competition that I started a few years back. In YBY2 Sujit beat over 60,000 people from almost every country in the world to become a finalist. He had already recognized the power of his actions on peers and had set up the Inspiration Unlimited initiative, and has now authored his first book with the title ‘Life Simplified!’. Sujit is in his mid twenties and is one of the most motivating emerging leaders I’ve met. The incredible thing is that the ‘Your Big Year’ competition revealed to me the positive power and positive mentality of such a huge proportion of youth. They will not allow the cynicism of the older generations to infect them, but unlike in the past, this is not because of naivety.

They know the problems that face humanity and the planet. They understand the need for change more acutely than ever before. They also know that their approach will be unrecognizably different, more collaborative, and more open, than ever. They are aware of the risks of being subverted or made immobile by sheer weight of input and death by committee, but in the transition of leadership styles, to theirs, they know that they hold the seeds of previously unimagined potential.

Sujit from India, Charles from Uganda, Barbra from the US, Linh from Australia, Sarah from the UK, each one of them knows their responsibilities to make the world a better place. I for one, for the sake of my two children and because it is so much fun, will do everything I can to help them.

Join the Merit community of global citizens and emerging leaders at www.worldmerit.org. Also try and become the voice of the upcoming generation by winning our Ambassadorial world trip at www.yourbigyear.com. If you are in a position of influence please try and support both initiatives and contact me directly. If you are old, and I mean in the definition I laid out earlier (not being literate in the new world’s communication methods) then you are unlikely to have read this note, but if you have, either modernize, or get out of the way of Sujit et al.

Chris Arnold,

Founder World Merit and Smaller Earth

_____________________________________________________________________

For knowing what #WID is Just visit http://sujitlalwani.blogspot.in/2013/04/wid.html

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