The Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs Summit (YLES) is the flagship event of the LUMS’ (Lahore University of Management Sciences) Entrepreneurial Society. It was held between 23-27th December 2018 and this was the 13th edition of the event.
The theme for this year’s YLES was “Be Inspired”. This aimed to raise awareness of the need for inspiration in the participants and encouraged them to realize the need to be inspired by something or someone before they venture into the vast realm of entrepreneurship.
An all new delegation system
Considering there have been 12 annual editions of the flagship LES event, this year the steering committee decided to come up with an all-new delegation system in order to differentiate themselves from the previous editions. Teams were not required to have a head delegate – instead, each team member was assigned the role of an individual director. For example, one delegate was made the Managing Director, while another was made Director Finance and so on.
This helped to ensure that each participant actively takes part in the competition instead of staying on the side and relaying all the work load to his/her fellow team members.
An app for the participants
To assist the participants, the host team came up with a separate app for YLES in collaboration with LES’ Entech Project. The app contained navigation details of the LUMS Campus along with information on where each competition was being held, which brings us to the next point:
The Competitions
YLES has a long-running tradition of conducting numerous competitions in order to assess the participants’ business knowledge and application/analytical skills. These include Idea Junction, in which participants have to present their own unique business ideas in front of a panel of judges. Participants whole heartedly prepared presentations of their business ideas and were tasked with the presentation of these ideas to the judges within a prescribed period of 5 minutes.
Brand Rush is another competition which truly tests participants’ business knowledge. Teams have to come up with branding strategies for businesses. This year, the YLES team went above and beyond by creating new case studies for the participants. Each team was tasked with the drafting of branding strategies of either one of 5 imaginary businesses.
Strategic Business Management tasks participants with the drafting of business strategies for numerous businesses. Again, the Host Team came up with case studies for this round as well. Teams extensively prepared their presentations and effectively presented them to the panel of judges, who subsequently praised the youthful teams for their efforts.
After the series of competitions, 3 teams emerged as winners, with the team from Lahore Grammar School’s Johar Town Campus grabbing the top position.
The winners have been offered incubation spots by Innovation District 92, which was one of the sponsors of YLES 2018. They are actively in touch with the winning teams for the rest of the incubation procedure.
TechJuice was the official media partner of YLES 13.
