Malaysia Invites ABQ Accelerator to Help Lead Global Entrepreneurship Conference

24 Jan — Story from the Innovation Central Newsletter

Folks at Creative Startups have no idea how either the Malaysian government or its business leaders discovered them, but like so many modern relationships, the match began online and progressed quickly: An email invitation appeared in co-founder Alice Loy’s inbox in November, and in early December, the Albuquerque business accelerator for the creative economy was in Southeast Asia heading sessions for the Global Entrepreneurship Community Conference.

The two-day event, held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center, was hosted by the national government’s Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) and its community partner the Global Entrepreneurship Movement (GEM).

It was designed to bring together “ecosystem influencers, startup communities and industry leaders from all over the world to collaborate and find new innovative approaches to solve real problems and chart the way forward for entrepreneurs,” according to the conference website, http://www.gecommunity.co/.

About 1,000 people attended. Fifty of those were representing organizations that conference hosts sought to be thought leaders at the event.

Among them was Julia Youngs (her head is in that picture somewhere!), Creative Startups program manager, who had this to say:

“Even though it wasn’t all about tech entrepreneurs, that was the way the scales tipped globally. The creative economy doesn’t have the same presence at the table as the other sectors. So we brought a creative industries and startups perspective to the program.”

Creative Startups has also recently been expanding its program beyond New Mexico. Winston-Salem, N.C., became the its first licensee last year, and other cities nationally (Baltimore and Los Angeles) and internationally (Portugal and Singapore) have shown interest in doing the same.

The team expects connections made at the Malaysia conference to have expanded Creative Startups’ opportunities globally.

The conference highlighted the Malaysian government’s commitment to promoting entrepreneurism. Even the country’s prime minister showed up to speak at the event.

View the original article here.