AMERICAN novelist Pearl S. Buck once said, "The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation."
During the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa, Germany and Spain gambled with their younger, albeit untested, players. What they lacked in experience, they overcame through passion, hard work and team spirit. The young players played their hearts out because their future depended on the team's outcome and performance. Germany was stopped at the last four, while Spain went all the way to the finals to beat Holland.
It was not easy for the manager to choose to leave out the more experienced players in favour of the young. Fortunately for Spain, the manager stuck his neck out and adhered to his strategy -- playing a young team despite having to put up with much criticism and intense media pressure.
The manager not only had to convince the football federation but also the public and the media of his decision. At the same time, he hoped the young players would not be overwhelmed by the occasion, and be intimidated by the seniors.
In many ways, this situation is not much different for governments and business management. In Malaysia, the leadership needs to engage the youth in the country's pursuit of economic transformation and innovation.
We need managers who better understand youth to leverage on their strengths to support the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP). But we must first make them aware of the importance of the ETP, as well as understand its objectives and the drivers to get them interested to participate.
There lies the first challenge. The youth, through their social networking platforms, have created their own paradigm and language of communication. This transcends geographical and cultural boundaries, allowing them to communicate effectively among their groups. Could they be attracted to ETP as much as Facebook, Twitter or even cloud computing? Would it be necessary to "translate" the ETP into their language or even better, an extension of the ETP that spells out clearly the roles and opportunities for them?
One way of overcoming the communication barriers is to collaborate with the various youth movements.
One good example is myHarapan. It is a youth trust foundation that supports youth and youth projects that contribute to the country's social economy by providing platforms and opportunities.
It facilitates youth development by ensuring continuous value creation from the youth, for the youth and via the youth. Its intention is to be the platform for the youth to get their voices and projects heard.
From my brief encounter with myHarapan, my first impression was as Buck described: fearless. The youth have different perspectives of the ETP. They are quite wary of the inconsistent and seasonal engagement initiated by the public sector.
The lack of a clear framework makes it difficult for them to provide effective feedback. They have a dislike for formal meetings. They prefer more informal yet result-oriented engagement like Web conferencing, for example. It is as effectual as live meetings but with less cost or even no cost at all.
It is highly recommended that we utilise the Internet and electronic media to engage them. We need to take advantage of the social networking platforms which youths use a lot.
Through the Internet, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) have become more accessible. The earlier they are aware of STEM and the consequent opportunities, the more likely they will choose these fields for their career. The nation needs STEM-qualified people to drive the economic transformation. In many economic activities, data mining is often crucial. The more IT-savvy youth can undertake desk research and analysis faster. This will support the business community which needs quick quality intelligence for market access and business development.
In order to fast-track the STEM initiative, an alternative thread to the formal education is strongly recommended. We can engage the youth during holidays on projects supported and guided by industry. They will be grouped according to age; foundation club (15-20 years), the idea generation club (21-30 years) and niche builder club (31-35 years).
The foundation club will focus on STEM and innovation fundamentals, the idea generation club on ideas and the niche builder club on early entrepreneurship. We will profile the youth and select the best.
The initial target is to transform 100,000 youth to be ETP-certified next year. This way, the nation would produce at least one million youth leaders in their respective skills to continue the economic transformation beyond 2020.
There are similarities in managing football and the economic system. Not unlike football, the economic transformation game requires appropriate resources and strategies to move ahead.
We have youth as our resource. They are at the age of discovery and dreams with limitless energy and ideas. All we need is the right mix of resources to match our strategies. It's a team game and therefore, requires the contribution of all members of the team, not only the players, but from the coaching to the pitch maintenance person and even the fans. It's time for us to return to the premier league of economic and market competition, and to strive to emerge champion. With youthful support, the sky is the limit.
By Yusoff Sulaiman
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