Alibaba Challenges Students in Thailand and 12 Other Markets to Create Solutions for a Post Covid-19 World

Alibaba Business School has announced the launch of Alibaba Global E-Commerce Talent (GET) Global Challenge 2020, aimed squarely at helping businesses and organizations worldwide recover faster and rebound stronger in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The competition will empower the next generation of entrepreneurial talents to contribute by creating transformative digital solutions in collaboration with mentors and partners from the Alibaba network.

Targeted at university students/students from higher learning institutions from 13 markets including the African continent, China, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand and Uzbekistan, the competition will be conducted virtually starting this month. A minimum of 100 teams, each comprising three to five members, are expected to compete. Following national finals that will take place between June and August, around 30 teams will face off virtually in the World Finals from August 17 to 25, 2020.

“The pandemic is fast-becoming a generation-defining moment, especially for the incoming class of talents. We have collectively risen to the occasion with digital tools invented and repurposed to limit and mitigate the difficulties faced, and there is no better time to get our future talents to lend their creativity and digital savviness in helping the world to recover,” said Zhang Yu, Alibaba Group Partner and Vice President. “We have seen examples of how digital transformation can play a key role in reducing day-to-day struggles, improving work productivity and quality of life. We hope the challenge will spur the creation of even more life-changing solutions not just for now, but for the future as well.”

Overwhelming support from students in Thailand

The national round of the competition in Thailand, called “Lazada Young Entrepreneur Challenge 2020,” is organized by Lazada Thailand in collaboration with CCN Partner, Alibaba’s local GET channel partner. It has received overwhelming support from students since the local announcement of the competition, with sign-ups from more than 80 teams.

“Being a part of Alibaba’s GET Global Challenge is a great extension of the 'Lazada Young Entrepreneur Challenge 2020’ that we had recently rolled out to find and nurture new-gen SMEs who will contribute to the future of Thailand’s e-commerce landscape,” said Jack Zhang, Deputy CEO of Lazada Thailand.

As part of the national round, each participating team will be required to start a digital venture on the Lazada Thailand platform. Lazada University and the Alibaba GET Network will provide participants with weekly online trainings throughout April to June, deepening their knowledge on e-commerce topics ranging from digital transformation, identifying and attracting online customers, livestreaming, data analysis to pitching for investment and more. At the same time, challenges will take place in May and June.

The top 30 teams – selected based on the quality of their business plans, their performance in each challenge and their online store performance – will be able to attend the national finals in July at this year’s host university, Srinakharinwirot University in Bangkok. In addition to a cash award, the top three finalists from Thailand will be invited to present their projects in the World Finals in August and have the opportunity to win an entrepreneur fund of up to RMB100,000 (around Bt.459,000).

“The competition not only equips young Thai students aspiring to be entrepreneurs with the requisite know- how and skills, but also provides them with exposure to a global stage and valuable connections. We believe that such learnings will help prepare the youths for a post-Covid-19 world,” Jack Zhang said.

Further learning opportunities on the global stage

The teams who qualify for the World Finals from the different markets will be judged on the innovativeness of their proposal, ability to solve real-world problems, as well as the feasibility, sustainability, and scalability of their new ventures. The final six teams will receive benefits in the form of business funding by Alibaba and the eligibility to join the global GET talent bank, which will provide even more support for their business endeavors. The winning team will also be granted a fully sponsored digital economy discovery trip to Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou, China, including exclusive sessions with Alibaba GET Network trainers.

The Alibaba GET Network was initiated in 2018 as an extension of Alibaba’s GET program which, to date, has benefitted 80 education partners and trained more than 300 lecturers and over 13,000 students and other participants from Australia, India, Israel, Mongolia, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, South Korea, Singapore and China.

For more details about the competition, please visit: https://bit.ly/2RyIzs8

About Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. The company aims to build the future infrastructure of commerce. It envisions that its customers will meet, work and live at Alibaba, and that it will be a company that lasts at least 102 years.

About Alibaba Business School

Alibaba Business School conducts training programs and workshops, with the vision of empowering the Digital Economy through education to share the positive impact of a new business paradigm in promoting inclusive development and to inspire and empower entrepreneurs, youth and women globally. These programs encourage entrepreneurs to share and use digital economy tools to create positive social impact and to collaborate with each other as well as the public sector to create larger impact. To date, there are over 500 digital entrepreneurs and business leaders from 28 countries trained directly by Alibaba Business School, who have subsequently shared with over 2 million policymakers, entrepreneurs, SME’s, practitioners and students in their own countries.

About the Alibaba GET Network

The Alibaba GET Network is part of Alibaba’s mission to make it easy to do business anywhere. By tapping into the resources and best practices from the Alibaba Group ecosystem worldwide, the initiative aims to share the positive impact of the new business paradigm of the digital economy and promote inclusive development to inspire and empower youth globally. The Alibaba GET Network is open to universities and educational institutions wanting to incorporate digital economy curriculum in the education and training system and develop young entrepreneurs and digital talents. For more information about Alibaba GET Program, please visit get.alibaba.com/

About Lazada Group

Founded in 2012, Lazada Group is the leading eCommerce platform in Southeast Asia. We are accelerating progress in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam through commerce and technology. With the largest logistics and payments networks in the region, Lazada is a part of our consumers’ daily lives in the region and we aim to serve 300 million shoppers by 2030. Since 2016, Lazada has been the Southeast Asia flagship platform of Alibaba Group powered by its cutting-edge technology infrastructure.

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