Global Economic Community Summit 2017: Opening Eyes to an Even Bigger World

On December 12th and 13th, 2017, the Global Economic Community Summit was held in the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center, officiated by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato' Sri Najib Tun Razak. The summit hosts 100 labs for budding entrepreneurs, 70 of which happened during the 2- day event itself. Now one might wonder if such an event would cost a pretty penny to participate, but it doesn't. It was free.

At its core, the summit features the Blue Ocean Strategy developed by Prof. W. Chan Kim and Prof. Renée Mauborgne, which also features their new book: Blue Ocean Shift. It showcases Malaysia's embrace of the NBOS (National Blue Ocean Strategy) and how they have used it to improve the development of the country, which was an eye-opening revelation. Every participant was also given a copy of the book throughout the summit.

The tone of the summit overall was about the future. Not only successful business leaders were invited to give keynotes, but futurists as well, such as Dr. Michio Kaku and Dr. Sophie Hackford. Coupled with the groundedness in startup advice as well as sustainable development given by Dr. Boyd Cohen and Steven Hoffman, the summit was a rich mix designed to inspire new ideas to be marketed and explored.

Blockchain and cryptocurrency was also a much debated topic between talks, with proponents both for and against it. No doubt it was a topic that couldn't be avoided, and some really good ideas came out of it.

At the end of the second day, I met a lot of new friends, all of them by accident and I couldn't stop thinking of how big the world can get. Too big that one can even be fearful of the speed that change is happening, but at the same time excited for the adventures that await all of us as we go headlong into the second decade of the century.